


Harvest

by coyote_nebula



Series: Minefield [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Batman's super power is existential depression, Because it's me, Bruce Wayne Gets a Hug, Bruce Wayne Has Issues, Bruce Wayne Needs a Hug, Bruce Wayne Visits Smallville, Bruce Wayne is Batman, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Bruce Wayne-centric, Cows, Depression, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Figure that one out, Flashbacks, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, I'm like chronologically impaired sorry, Intrusive Thoughts, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne Get Along, Jason Todd Has Issues, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Mother-Son Relationship, Not Canon Compliant, Overdosing, Panic Attacks, Parents As People, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reconciliation, Self-Hatred, Symbolism, Touch-Averse, Touch-Starved, Trauma, Underage Drinking, Worried Parent Bruce Wayne, farming, on the macro level the micro level needs work sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28075713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coyote_nebula/pseuds/coyote_nebula
Summary: Bruce knows how Jason died. Bruce knows how Jason returned to Gotham.He knows very little about what happened in-between.When Clark Kent prevails upon him to complete the corn harvest at the Kent farm, Bruce is forced to make peace with his own shortcomings to be the father that Jason needs him to be.--You know the Hallmark movie where the city slicker comes to the small town with unaddressed baggage and leaves having healed all their personal relationships with the help of adoptive country moms against a charming rural backdrop? This is that, father-son edition.
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Martha Kent & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne
Series: Minefield [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044210
Comments: 74
Kudos: 379





	1. Sow

**Author's Note:**

> Well, after hitting 10,000 words I concede that this is not a one-shot. I'm splitting it into three or four parts.  
> Takes place after Bruce Wayne breaks his arm in Tap Out. This stands alone, but for the ideal reading experience I recommend Tap Out first.  
> Apparently Bruce and Jason doing agricultural work is my own personal crack of choice? Actual farmers, don't flame me.  
> Tags to be updated as we go.

“You ever thought about turning this into a hay meadow?”

Clark missed Bruce’s sardonic eyebrow— he was busy giving a thoughtful appraisal to the gently sloped lawn of the Wayne Estate, hands thrust in the pockets of his jeans as they walked. His worn boots and checkered shirt were at odds with the obsessively refined shrubs and grass.

“Drainage looks good. Lord knows you’ve got the acreage. Might be a nice little side income,” he said, then flashed a dry smile. “That is, for us regular folk. For  _ you, _ pocketchange.”

When Bruce didn’t answer, his attention returned to the perfectly groomed expanse. The Manor just peeked over the rise. “Still. Might make a good community project. Forage is expensive, good forage, especially this year. You could donate it.”

Bruce considered. Despite being eclectic to the point of becoming a laughingstock of the Gotham elite, using his resources self-sacrificially to help the community was a good PR move. Such a project would require bringing outside advisors and labor to the property itself, however. It would make more sense to purchase property elsewhere than to risk prying eyes at the Manor. And if he did that, he might as well have just chosen some existing project to put money into, which he did. Already. As Bruce Wayne, Wayne Enterprises, and anonymously. So, really, what would be the point?

The setting sun glinted in Clark’s glasses. “Bruce. Stop over-analyzing it. I’m just thinkin’ out loud.”

“Hnn.”

Without the bucolic commentary, it was a quiet walk.

Finally, Clark sniffed. “...You gonna tell me what happened with the arm?”

The cast was off. The sling wasn’t. “No.” 

Clark shrugged his broad shoulders. “Okay. Alfred already told me, anyhow.”

Bruce sighed. Of course he did. “Then _ why ask.” _

“Just worried about you, I guess.”

“Don’t be.” There. Problem solved.

But it was never that easy with Clark, who shrugged. “I have to be.  _ Someone _ has to be.”

“Why.”

Clark studied Bruce’s face like he could read it the way he read the land, down to the microbe. He imagined the permanent furrows, the scars he hadn’t bothered to cover up today, and didn’t have to be a farmer to be annoyed by the implications.

Clark’s assessment, however, was unclear. “Why not?”

Bruce took the question as rhetorical rather than perpetuate a pointless line of questioning. “Is this why you stopped by?”

“Partly.” Clark scuffed the toe of his boot on the next step and put a hand out to still Bruce by the shoulder, turning so they stood face to face. “Also… I wanted to ask a favor.”

——

Bruce was ninety-seven percent sure Jason would refuse.

They had barely spoken since  _ the incident.  _ With a broken arm, Batman was off patrol, and Red Hood operated independently from the Cave most nights. That confined their interaction to awkward small talk at Alfred’s Sunday brunches.

As Clark’s request was a two person job, it was left to Bruce to recruit the second person. Dick seemed the natural choice, but a few excuses later it became clear he wasn’t interested.  _ (“You know I’d love to, Bruce, but I just took off a week for that ‘appendix surgery’ and the GPD is still swamped with those Hatter guys… did you ask Tim?”) _

Tim was in San Francisco with the Titans. He was even less enthusiastic than Dick.  _ (“Sorry, there’s this Confetti King wacko— no, it’s worse than it sounds, trust me… did you ask Dick?”) _

He texted Cassandra, even though she was in Beijing. She sent back a broken heart emoji, a skyscraper, and a bat.

As a last ditch effort, he asked Alfred.  _ (“I’m afraid the home fires cannot be left untended, Master Bruce… besides, there is one more candidate you’ve yet to adjure.”) _

Which is how he came to find himself in Jason’s cramped kitchen, awaiting his refusal.

He estimated a thirty percent likelihood that said refusal would involve firearms, forty-five percent a shouting match, twenty for a flat  _ no  _ and disinvitation to the apartment, and five for such uncontrollable howls of laughter that Bruce would be forced to leave of his own volition.

If he offered a raise and paid time off, he could probably still convince his personal assistant to do it. Stephen was a bit of a brownnoser, to be honest.

Jason pinned him with a long look, as if flaying back flesh and bone to discern his true intentions, before turning back to the teapot with a sharply amused huff.

“Sure,” he announced. “Why the hell not?”

——

As soon as they crossed the Kents’ threshold, Martha captured Bruce in a bear hug.  _ “Bruce,  _ it’s so good to see you in the light of  _ day _ for once!”

According to Dick, an authority on the subject, he was  _ “not a hugger.” _

It rang true. Not because of a misanthropic disgust for human touch as commonly assumed— if he didn’t have strong feelings for humanity, he would hardly spend his nights absorbing the pain of innocents and shedding it on the guilty. But  _ that _ was defined by clear goals. Measurable effects. Evidence. After extracting all necessary information he could then act with certainty, his hand a tool that touched lives in either careful dispassion or in seething vengeance.

Neither approach was applicable to Martha Kent.

He was wooden. With no apparent threat  _ to _ or  _ from _ her, no obvious problem to solve, there was nothing from which to deduce the proper reaction to being cheerily glommed upon by Clark’s mother. His reeling brain fired off several observations anyway— her grip was surprisingly strong; flyaway hair from her bun tickled his throat; her left hand was warm against a surgical scar that still ached, sometimes, when he’d overworked his back; her ear was against his heart, hearing the secret  _ thrumming  _ that nobody but Superman should be able to hear— he fought the urge to squirm away from the intimacy, from the suspicion that she was holding him out of affection for  _ him,  _ the owner of that sound, unaware of the dangerous blackness pumping through it.

If she knew how easily this body wrought destruction, how  _ tainted _ it made him, how _ dirtied,  _ she would not dare to nestle warmly against his chest, or to press a kiss to his cheek and a hand through his hair the same way she did for her own son.

If she knew, she would not try to make him  _ want _ what would surely end up hurting her the same as everyone else. 

When she let go and turned to Jason, Bruce was as relieved as he was dazed and oddly empty.

He was, to put it one way,  _ “not a hugger.” _

Jason accepted her embrace stiffly, looking unsure what to make of the keen introduction.

Mrs. Kent’s face was alight when she drew back, hands on Jason’s arms. “Oh my  _ goodness,” _ she chuckled, taking in his dubious expression. “You are  _ just like  _ your daddy.”

Bruce tensed as Jason’s demeanor turned glacial with false humor. “Now, if you’re gonna get nasty, I’m just gonna leave.” 

His hackle-raising didn’t intimidate her.  _ “Skittish, _ the both of you,” she said with a fond laugh, heedless of the brittle tension.

Clark rubbed the back of his neck, looking between Jason and Bruce. “Ma…”

She ignored him to hug Jason to her side and straighten a lock of his white hair against the black. “Nobody gets away from their parents without a little contamination, sweetheart. Just ask Clark how he likes his eggs.”

Jonathan and Clark were perfect mirror images as they straightened in protest.

“Hey, ketchup is a perfectly legitimate topping for eggs,” Clark objected, and Jonathan gripped his shoulder in solidarity.

Jason snorted and relaxed a little. In turn, so did Bruce.

It wasn’t their first brush with war thus far— the drive to Smallville hadn’t taken long to devolve.

Jason was poking around the menus in the car’s radio. “Explain to me again why we’re going to  _ pick cotton  _ or whatever?”

Bruce sighed with put-upon patience. “The Kents will be in Alaska. The corn harvest is unusually late. They cannot change their plans.”

“And this falls to  _ us  _ and not the local yokels because?...”

Bruce grimaced. Clark hadn’t fought fair. “Because Jonathan refused to pay _ hands _ to do the work. Or let Clark pay.  _ Or  _ let me pay. He intended to cancel the trip and do the work himself.”

_ “Ma has been planning this for ages, Bruce,”  _ Clark had said. “ _ She’s talked about going to Alaska with Pa and me and mine since I was a kid. Now they’re older, and… well, I don’t want something to happen before she gets to go. What if it’s her last chance?” _

“By that you mean, Clark guilted you into it.”

He huffed in answer.

“Man, you really  _ can _ be guilted into anything.” Jason slouched against the window and mused, “Wonder what I could get with my post-Pit League stories.”

A chill went through him. The League… of Assassins? Certainly not the Justice League. And the Pit. He’d _ assumed  _ a Lazarus Pit was involved in Jason’s return, but he’d hoped…

Anger shot through him. He’d been stupid. The League carefully guarded all active Pits, so the chances Jason had been exposed to one and not the other were slim to nil.

He glanced away from the road— Jason was looking out the window as if he’d said nothing out of the ordinary, nor was there any more to discuss. Possibly, he hadn’t intended to say it and hoped Bruce hadn’t heard.

Bruce turned the radio off and took a deep breath. The years he’d lost with Jason were almost totally unknown— he didn’t want to miss one word. When he spoke, his voice was harsher than he intended. “...Something you want to tell me?”

Jason flinched, apparently stung, then bristled with a harsh laugh. “Tell  _ you?  _ Oh, yeah. But ever since Alfred reinstated the Swear Jar, I have to watch my budget.”

“I _ meant—” _

“I know what you  _ meant,”  _ Jason snapped. “I’m not in the mood to get judged for being somewhere I didn’t want to be in the first place, alright? Forget I said anything.” He dug earphones out of his pocket and put them in, settling in to ignore Bruce for the rest of the drive.

Bruce mentally replayed his words. The League of Assassins. The lack of information gnawed at him—he wanted to know everything. It wouldn’t appease his outrage, but maybe there was something he could do, some repair he could make.

Did  _ Talia  _ have something to do with it?

His stomach clenched as deeply swallowed memories reasserted themselves. Taking advantage of  _ him  _ he could accept as an occupational hazard. But if she had laid  _ one finger _ on Jason…

He shook the crawling sensation of her treacherous hands, her poisonous lips away. Right now, he’d been clumsy with his words to Jason and wasted the opportunity to learn more. He’d have to stay alert to draw the rest out later.

Before Jason died, he’d been better with words. Not much, but enough to salvage the blunders. Now it seemed like the only way to avoid a fight was to say as little as possible.

A twinge from his recently broken arm reminded him that  _ that  _ didn’t always work, either.

He adjusted the sling. It was… not  _ justice,  _ exactly.  _ Penance.  _ For sins he could not absolve but only buy time from.

When Jason had asked to spar, he’d suspended his usual rule of non-interference and gone to the mats because Jason never asked him for  _ anything,  _ and if what he wanted so much to do so was catharsis, Bruce could oblige _. _ The same place he had so long ago taught a young boy confidence and a sacred trust, he haggardly returned to at the heels of a young man who held nothing back.

It should have pleased him. He should have felt  _ pride _ to see his technique honed to razor sharpness, amplified by new skills he couldn’t  _ then _ name the origin of, but turned his stomach now. He should have felt  _ love  _ for this miracle who had cheated death and derangement to come back to him whole _.  _

These were things his mind knew. But in his chest was only a hollow, indistinct echo of  _ failure, remorse,  _ and  _ grief. _ Its tinny ring was ever-damped by the numb resolve to carry on for the sake of The Mission.

At that moment, he hated the mission. He wanted to  _ feel.  _ Anything.

So when Jason pinned him into an armlock, he knew what would happen. He knew with academic clarity that it was a Kimura lock from a triangle chokehold, because he’d schooled all of his students in it, including Jason. He also knew that if he didn’t tap out, Jason would break his humerus and possibly dislocate his elbow or his shoulder. Without cheating via gadget, his only recourse was to submit.

He didn’t.

It only occurred to him later, while Alfred was applying a plaster cast to stabilize the spiral fracture, that Jason would take it as ego.

Maybe it was. He certainly didn’t consider that of all people, _Jason,_ the one with a mean streak, would balk at amends paid in blood. Would ream him out for allowing it.

Whatever Bruce did, it was the wrong thing.

He wondered if bringing Jason to Smallville was the wrong thing, too.

A clap on his shoulder returned him to the farmhouse. “Well, how about we go see the equipment while the kid’s getting the nickel tour? You haven’t looked around the farm itself much, I don’t think,” Jonathan said, steering him towards the door.

He hesitated, reluctant to leave Martha alone with Jason. She was harmless, but landmines were everywhere with the boy and he hadn’t fully processed his thoughts about Jason’s time with the League or what that may have entailed.

Clark met his eyes with a small nod and trailed after them into the kitchen, freeing Bruce to walk along with his father towards the barn.

As they passed a fenced in water trough, Jonathan pointed further afield to a grazing cow. 

“That old man enjoying retirement over there is Beauford. He won’t bother you as long as you don’t bother him— just make sure the trough fills and he’s fine.” The black bull in the distance didn’t raise his head from the grass. “You know he was Clark’s FFA project?”

“Hnn.”

Jonathan took that as rapt interest and continued. “Took best in show. Poor Clark, he couldn’t bear to sell him at the end of the semester, so he stayed on with us. Won shows for years— plenty of his genes running through the local raisers’ herds, matter of fact,” he said proudly. “Now he mostly spends his time grouching around out there. Never did take to anyone but Clark, the old goat.”

Bruce half-listened, reminding himself again and again that Clark was in the house with Jason and Martha. Nothing would happen on his watch. Not to Martha  _ or  _ Jason.

They approached the harvester. “Anyhow, equipment's over here. Clark says you can drive anything with wheels— you ever used one of these?”

Had Bruce ever had occasion to  _ harvest crops,  _ he may have been able to answer in the affirmative. As Alfred’s vegetable garden had neither need of nor could even accommodate the bulk of such a device, he had not. “I’m a quick study.”

Jonathan laughed. “I bet. Well, I’ll give you the rundown, and whatever that lacks you can find in here.” He reached up to pluck a dog-eared, oil-spotted manual from the cab and drop it in the driver’s seat. “Just be gentle. She’s a loaner.”

“The rundown” was surprisingly in-depth. By the time the Clark and Jason joined them, Bruce had forgotten more than he thought there was to know about harvesters. He mentally made plans to do further research.

“Good, now that you’re both here— Jason, I’m putting you on the grain cart. You’ll be picking up loads from the harvester and taking them to the grain bin.” Jonathan waved to the silver silo-shaped structure in the distance. “I’ll show you how to run the tractor, then how to work the dump pit.”

It was becoming readily apparent why they’d been asked to come a full day early— there was a lot to absorb, and Jonathan expected live demonstrations of their newfound knowledge. Clark sometimes contributed tips he’d learned the hard way, usually with a laugh and an embarrassing anecdote.

Several hours later, Jonathan was satisfied that they’d gotten a good start. He remembered, as an afterthought, to show Jason around the chicken coop and outline the chores therein; Clark departed to make sure his family was ready for the trip, promising to be back in the morning; Bruce was left standing on the back porch when Martha came out of the house and hooked an arm through his. It was easier to have her beside him, on his arm where he could pretend she was a society matriarch that only expected a  _ show _ of endearment. He could maintain his barriers.

They watched Jonathan point to Beauford, just a black spot from this distance, apparently reciting his history again while Jason listened enduringly, hands on his hips, slightly slumped from the long day.

“You’re cut from the same cloth,” Martha said. “I can see why you chose each other.”

Bruce looked down at her. Had they? It seemed to him that Jason had been swept up into Batman’s shadow regardless of choice, and from the beginning it seemed they didn’t see eye to eye on anything. Jason certainly wouldn’t appreciate another comparison to Bruce, in any case.

A breeze swept the fields. She sighed, content. “Do you remember the night Clark first brought you here?”

“Hn.” Of course he did.

She passed him a wry, knowing smile. _ “Jason _ noticed the pictures, too.”

——

He actually remembered very _ little _ of the night Superman brought him, completely insensible, to the Kent Farm.

The notable parts of what recollection he _ did _ have included following a chemical trail to Metropolis, against Alfred’s advice— something as trivial as the flu wasn’t going to deter Batman from putting a kink into the supply chain. It was early in his vigilante career, before Robin or the Justice League, and he was a one-man army. He also recalled unwanted assistance from Superman, whose reading of the situation was that Batman was being overwhelmed by perfectly average flunkies.

Which was absurd. He was… _ field testing _ the body armor.

His collapse directly after sustaining an electric shock, courtesy of broken equipment wires and spillage from destroyed tanks, was harder to make excuses for.

Between the heart-stopping punch of electricity biting through a tear in his suit and illusory glimpses of hands and a dimmed bedroom, it was all a blank.

The fever dreams were still vivid all these years later, however.

Cars swerved around him as he collected loose pearls on a Gotham side street, frantic to find them all before they were lost or crushed by uncaring wheels. On his desperate hunt for the final pearl, he’d see stars as a car or passing truck would strike his skull, knocking every bead out of his hands and back into traffic. He cast fearfully to the sidewalk— his mother was there, panic in her eyes, a brutal man’s arm around her neck and his gun to her head.

People called out,  _ look, it’s Martha Wayne!  _ as they flew by, but no one stopped. They left her clutched to the dead-eyed mugger who’d broken her necklace and sent Bruce into the road to collect the pieces. Bruce was her only hope of rescue, but he had to find the pearls,  _ all of them,  _ and they’d gone everywhere, and just when he almost had them all, he lost them again, and his skull was cracking wide open and she was going to die, and it would be his fault, and he was already sorry, he wanted her to know that he was sorry and that he’d tried his best—

His head was one raw nerve, one unyielding blaze with searing jolts of blinding agony striking at random, impossible to prepare for. He kept searching, braced so rigidly against the pain that his breath scraped through his tightened throat in uneven gasps. Another car struck and a noise jerked free from him as pearls sprayed across the asphalt. It was hopeless. He was trying. But she had to know— he had to tell her—

_ “Hnh,”  _ he tried, choking on hot, acrid smoke.

The dream started peeling at the edges. The hoarse rasp in his throat defined a separate reality from the rolling pearls and stink of exhaust.  _ “Mom.” _

Someone else was nearby. “It’s Martha, sweetheart.” His pulse stuttered. This voice was removed from the sidewalk and the mugger’s dirty hands, not panicked but soft and serene. Was she free? Could he abandon these godforsaken beads and go home? He just wanted both of them to  _ go home. _

Lower, she spoke again. “Are you  _ sure?  _ You know who he is, don’t you? Who his people are? _ ” _

“I know who he  _ is,  _ Ma, but I don’t have a clue who’s safe to call… if there’s anybody who knows about  _ Batman _ . I already tried getting the mask off, and I’m not keen to try  _ that  _ again. _ ” _

His head was just the epicenter of his burning existence— the fire left nothing untouched, and writhing brought no relief from the scalding ache, every position a bed of nails. A cold, wet touch at his collarbone made him flinch, but it felt good against his hot skin and he pried his eyes open to locate the source. The cowl was still on, the lenses fogged to bleariness from heat and sweat. “Mom?”

“Honey...” she murmured helplessly. He couldn’t see her clearly, and something deep in him  _ knew  _ that this was not his Martha, that he belonged to a worse truth, but she was holding his quivering hand and pressing cool cloth to his fever-struck skin; he was dying, he knew he was dying, and he was grateful for the indulgence of pretending.

At some point in the long night, he tore off the sweat-slick cowl. It didn’t matter anymore, if this was it. Soft fingers brushed back his soaked curls and caught drops of either perspiration or tears on his temples, hushed his strangled moaning. It was enough, to have this. Just once.

Only when he woke in the light of day, having apparently survived the single most agonizing migraine of his life, did the situation begin to dawn on him.

He was alone in the lived-in looking bedroom, but the quilted bedspread was carefully tucked around him where he knew he’d thrashed until it was a tangled heap. A glass of water and two tablets were on the nightstand.

Shakily he found his feet. He was still wearing the underlayers, but the batsuit was gone and so were his boots— he was barefooted. That could pose a problem if he meant to make a run for it.

He was still dizzy and weak, but with the furniture’s support he got to the window and parted the curtains. The light hit him like a brick to the face— he winced and turned away, swallowing the sudden nausea until he could try again, peering through just a sliver this time.

As far as the eye could see was flat  _ nothing,  _ just fields and a few small outbuildings like the barn close to the house, and down there on the clothesline, absurdly out of place, was the  _ batsuit _ .

He cursed under his breath. Escaping the second story through this window was out of the question in his current condition. He’d have to examine other options.

The hall light was on. He squinted, focusing on his sensitized hearing and the smell of food wafting up from the ground floor. The house was warm and modest— he almost felt claustrophobic, like he was in a dollhouse too small for his body.

There were dozens of framed photographs on the wall. Examining them for clues about his location and his captors was an obvious move, so he paused.

They were family photos, most of them candid. Many were not particularly good in the objective sense, either out of focus or glowing with red eyes, but they exuded joy and love... and he was engrossed. That was  _ Superman— Clark Kent,  _ to be precise— but unmistakably the Man of Steel even with ice cream all over his young face or splashing in a tiny plastic pool. There were dogs and cats and old tractors. An older couple featured prominently in the photos too, ruffling his hair or tickling him mid-delighted squeal. His parents.

Superman… had parents.

The stairs creaked, but he didn’t look up. The Kryptonian, an  _ alien,  _ had grown up on a farm, in the middle of nowhere, raised by two apparently normal humans, having birthday parties and pets and first cars. It looked… idyllic. Unreal.

A pang of longing squeezed his chest, and before he could stop himself he wondered what  _ his  _ family photos would look like if his parents were alive. He wondered what  _ he  _ would be like.

A creased finger pointed to one of the photos, one with Clark and the older couple posing in front of a truly monumental pumpkin. “This one’s my favorite.”

Instinctively he knew that this was the gentle hand that soothed him in fever  _ and _ the one in the photos. Her voice choked him with an old ache, one he smothered under violence and analysis and solitude. He asked anyway. “Who are you.”

A slight uncertainty crossed her face, as if unsure of his intentions, but her mouth was kind. “I’m Martha. Clark’s ma. Nice to meet you, mister…?”

He shouldn’t. But the cowl was off and he was selfish— he wanted to hear her say it. “Bruce.”

“Bruce.” Her eyes crinkled when she smiled, tired but pleased. “You had a long night. We all did, sittin’ up worrying— but as thrilled as I am to see you up and about, you’re going right back to bed. I brought soup,” she said, reaching up to press the back of her hand against his forehead appraisingly. “Chicken noodle.”

He should refuse. Call in a pickup. Figure out how to keep the Kents quiet about Bruce Wayne’s _strange_ _hobby._

But he was exhausted and sick at heart, and as much as he wanted to believe that the quilts and kitschy farm animal decorations were the backdrop of an elaborate trick, he couldn’t. Not right now, staring at these taunting photographs and with Martha Kent’s hand on his shoulder blade, herding him back to the bedroom.

He’d let Alfred know he was alive, make arrangements to inconspicuously return to Gotham in a day or so.

Then he would sleep, and try to forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figure limiting your skin-to-skin human contact to beating the daylights out of thugs is going to give you a super-bad complex after a while. That's not taking into account your survivor's guilt or self-loathing or unyielding drive to punish evil, which you kind of feel that you yourself are... thus our exploration of touch-starvation in a touch-averse body.  
> I think Jason shares a lot of those feelings, too. Stay tuned...


	2. Reap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bruce tries, but he just can't get it right. Jason eventually throws the old man a bone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did I end up writing a story about Bruce and Jason harvesting corn. How does this happen??  
> Also. Any heavy machinery with a rotating shaft is frickin dangerous and that warning label is worth the google

The sound of a camera shutter distracted him from his fifth video on harvest yield optimization.

“Perfect,” Jason was muttering to himself, smirking at his phone.

“What.”

“No one will believe that you spent three hours dissecting a corn harvester via Youtube, with  _ dirt  _ on your face _ ,  _ wearing a  _ feed store cap,  _ without photographic evidence. Freakin’  _ gold.  _ This is getting framed.”

Bruce frowned up from under the hat brim. “The sun—”

“Isn’t  _ up yet,”  _ Jason laughed.

The obvious delight thawed something in his chest. He’d rarely heard Jason laugh in happiness and not bitterness, not since he’d returned. It reminded him of  _ before,  _ a bittersweet pang.

“Hnn,” was all he said, and he resumed his study while Jason took the opportunity to poke around without a steady stream of information overload in his ear. They were in the barn, where Bruce was perched on the harvester’s stepside. He’d been making adjustments to the machine based on the average size and density of the crop in Kent’s fields— the prior settings left room for improvement.

Jason snorted down at something in the header. “Yikes. The poor bastard on this warning label is having one shitty day. You see this? He’s doing his best barber pole imitation.”

Bruce grunted. He’d seen it. Unfortunately he’d also seen its real life equivalent— bone and muscle were nothing to a spiraling shaft with six hundred horses behind it. It could wind a human being around it like ribbon, and the results were as grotesque as they were lethal. “Stay away from the auger.”

“I dunno, that sticker makes it look like a  _ great  _ place for a nap,” he replied, yawning. Neither of them were used to being up before the sun, and Bruce had gotten up at four to see the Kents off. After that he’d come out to the barn.

“Stay  _ away  _ from the auger,” he repeated, because if he’d learned anything after four Robins it was that warnings took six or seven repetitions to  _ start  _ to stick. Especially the ones that a normal person might call ‘common sense.’

His family didn’t quite fit the definition of ‘normal.’

“Yeah, yeah, stay away from the death machine, I heard you.” He’d moved on to the tractor while Bruce put his phone away and got ready to head out. “Holy crap. Is that a CB radio? Old school,” Jason remarked, opening the creaking driver’s door. He punched the radio and picked up the handset. “This is  _ Cycle Smoker _ , anybody got their ears on?”

There was silence but for the relayed transmission in the cab of the harvester. Jason grinned impishly. “Guess we got the air to ourselves,  _ Bling Bling.” _

Premonitions of incessant comm nonsense flashed before his eyes. “Jason.”

“This might suck less than I thought,” Jason said unsympathetically, then started the tractor.

Bruce sighed and climbed into the harvester.

Even with Jonathan’s crash course under their belts, it took an hour or so to fall into a more or less comfortable rhythm. Bruce worked the combine, which cut cornstalks and separated cobs from kernels, and Jason pulled the grain cart, matching their speed to catch the corn spouting from the harvester without stopping. When the cart was full he took it to the grain bin, where it was poured into the dump pit and transferred to the storage building via auger.

It wasn’t mindless work. At any given moment there were a dozen readouts and controls to consider in addition to coordinating grain transfer with Jason. The challenge was comfortable, like taking the Batmobile out on patrol or running support from the Cave. He found himself enjoying it, despite  _ ‘Cycle Smoker’s’  _ endless teasing.

“I’m empty. How are you doing on weight?”

_ “I’m about a dime short unless you put the hammer down in the next few minutes.” _

“Hn. Go ahead and take that one. I’m in a thin patch.” __

_ “Rodger dodger, Bling Bling, I’m silo-bound.” _

Bruce rolled his eyes. As Batman he was accustomed to abiding idle chatter on the comms, to a point; he wasn’t one to participate, but he recognized that a little bit of banter relieved excessive tension. Although he was invariably the one to shut the party down, he had a secret soft spot for it. Even when annoying, it reassured him that all was well. He would rather hush an excess of talk than to lose contact.

Silence always put his heart in his throat.

Even after the fact, even related secondhand, unexpected radio silence woke a deep dread in his stomach. It was the  _ not knowing  _ where there should be  _ knowing;  _ an implicit loss of control.

Several months prior, an extended trip to Beijing ended with the words,  _ “incident involving Master Jason.” _

Alfred’s intention had been to reassure, not to put him on the first jet back to the United States. But what Bruce lacked in emotional perception he more than made up for in intelligence gathering, and he was instantly attuned to an abundance of the unsaid. Alfred was not forthcoming with details, choosing instead to inform him that Jason had only agreed to recover from said ‘incident’ at the Manor upon reassurance that Bruce was out of the country and planned to remain so for the next several weeks.

That’s when Bruce booked his flight.

The story that he badgered out of Dick, Tim, and Barbara over the next few hours in the air did little to assuage his worry, despite promises that Jason would be fine, and was not dying, and no, there was nothing he could do.

Apparently Red Hood had gone quiet mid-op. The others were only aware because he’d been active on the comms in Batman’s absence, ribbing Red Robin unrelentingly over a missed handhold and subsequent dive into a dumpster brimming with discarded fish. Usually his habit was what he called “reading the mail:” listening in, but keeping quiet. Tonight he was too tempted by jokes at Tim’s expense to stay out.

The others were thus vaguely aware that he was on his motorcycle when the line went dead.

As Dick explained it, the burn Hood had left mid-delivery was too good to go unfinished unless something was wrong. After failing to regain contact, they searched outward from Park Row for hours with no success.

At long last, it was Alfred who received a phone call from Jason’s cell.

Jason and the tangled remains of his motorcycle weren’t in Gotham at all— Alfred found him not two miles from the Manor, slurring and tattered from an impromptu date with the asphalt and an iron fence. His helmet was all but destroyed.

Doctor Leslie Thompkins treated him for a severe concussion, a broken ankle, three cracked ribs, and a “shudder-inducing” case of road rash.

Tim mentioned that Jason, who was still disoriented, repeatedly confirmed that Bruce was nowhere to be found before promptly forgetting and asking again as they made their way back to the Manor. Apparently he’d been going the backway to the Cave when a deer clipped his bike, and Jason “didn’t wanna get the organ donor spiel because of fuckin’ Bambi.”

Bruce hadn’t allowed any of them to drive motorcycles unless they were Cave-issue, equipped with the most advanced stabilization and traction control technology available. The upgrades were highly effective, but they were conspicuous— that meant that bikes as a civilian were off the table.

Unless you were Jason Todd, who didn’t live under anyone’s roof but his own and could drive whatever he felt like driving, whenever and wherever he wanted.

After an interminable flight and a tense rush home, Bruce marched directly to Jason’s room to verify his condition for himself.

Jason was turned away from the door, asleep, barefooted in flannel pants and a hooded sweatshirt. He was curled loosely around a pillow like he’d had it pressed to his ribs before nodding off.

Bruce entered silently. Apart from a bulge of a boot around one ankle, it was difficult to assess the damage through the loose clothing, but Jason’s relaxed posture and steady respiration did more for his anxiety than any of the reports he’d been given. Carefully, so as not to wake him, he lifted a tuft of black and white hair out of his face and frowned at the purple bruising. It stirred a sickly memory and he let it go.

Seeing a grown man with the face of the boy this time capsule of a bedroom belonged to was a surreal feeling, and not one that he knew how to process.

Satisfied that Jason was not in imminent peril and aware that he was trespassing, he turned to go, but not before Jason curled in a little tighter on himself, trying to bury his face in the pillow.

Bruce paused, undecided. Weighing risks.

In the end he unfolded the throw from the foot of the bed and draped it over Jason before retreating.

Dick and Tim had brought the motorcycle back to the Cave. Bruce was glad he checked on Jason first, because the damage to the bike was dismal. The engine ran, but that was about the extent of its functionality. They’d also kept the helmet— he felt sick looking at the jagged chips and gouges and imagining the same in his son’s skull.

Jason didn’t know he was home and might run off if he did, but Bruce was reluctant to leave without confirming Jason’s long-term prognosis of “fine.” That wouldn’t be clear for a few days yet. So he sequestered himself in the Cave, and he passed the time by fixing Jason’s motorcycle.

With a few upgrades. Naturally.

When the work was done and he’d used the home security cameras to observe Jason up and about in the Manor, sore but recovering nicely, he resumed his business in Beijing.

If Jason asked about the additions to the motorcycle, he didn’t hear about it. The upgrades went unacknowledged until three weeks ago, when he, Nightwing, and Red Hood were involved in a high-speed chase. 

_ “Northbound, against traffic,”  _ Hood clipped. He was on the ground, pursuing from his bike. They were readying an ambush from the Batwing. “ _ Almost on him, get r—“  _

There was a bitten off curse and background noise that sounded a lot like blaring horns, screeching tires, and crushed metal.

Batman put the plane in high gear. “Hood.  _ Status.” _

A few heavy breaths lowered his blood pressure. Marginally.  _ “Damn.”  _ Hood said, sounding shaken. “ _ It pissed me off when you babyproofed this thing, B, but the stabilizers just saved my ass.” _

Nightwing raised his eyebrows. “High praise from the _Red_ _Hood_. Congratulations, B.” After a moment, there was a grin in his voice. “You can’t see it, Hood, but Batman is _almost_ smiling.”

_ “That time already? Thought he already used up his bimonthly smile.” _

“Stay sharp,” Bruce interrupted, but couldn’t quite bring back the frown.

Watching cornstalks bending to the header, he felt his mouth draw up a little just as the radio scratched.

_ “Hey Bling, I’m gonna need some motion lotion over here pretty soon.” _

Bruce stared at the radio. “... What?”

_ “Go-go juice. Diesel. I’m bumping E.” _

He checked the time. “We’ll have to go into town. The fuel cans are empty.”

_ “Copy that. Leave the corn cobber and come shotgun. We’ll take the truck and grab some groceries while we’re out.” _

“...There’s groceries in the house.”

_ “Lunch, old man. Let’s get lunch.” _

He sighed and shut the machine down. When he climbed into the tractor with Jason, he was treated to an incredulous look.

“Let me get this straight, B. You, the most infuriatingly prepared man on the  _ planet,  _ never listen in on truck chatter? That not in your Big Book of Super Detective Skills to Piss Off Your Friends?”

They drove up to the grain bin, stopping the hopper over the pit grate. “Apparently not.”

Jason pulled the parking brake. “You’ve never even seen  _ Smokey and the Bandit,  _ have you?”

“...What and the Bandit?”

Jason opened the groaning door and stepped out to work the elevator control box, already adept after several morning loads. “Guess what  _ we’re _ watching later,” he called back.

Bruce watched him tip the hopper and stand waiting for all the corn to spill out, marvelling that the last several hours might be the longest they’ve ever gone on good terms. He was unsure of the source of the good mood or even why Jason seemed so pleased to be here— he’d never shown much interest in any of this. Let alone such fascination that he could tolerate Bruce, who strained his composure just by being in the same room.

He climbed back in. “Hey, we should pick up a six-pack while we’re in town.”

“Hn. You’re still underage.”

“Wanna card me? I’ll show you my fake ID.” As Jason was still legally dead,  _ all  _ of his identification was fabricated. Presumably at least some of it was crafted to include the full benefits of adulthood.

Truthfully, Bruce did not care if Jason partook. His hypocrisy balked at denying a soldier, one that had seen so much death and destruction already, the relatively trivial choice of imbibing or not. regardless, it was his duty to attempt to maneuver his son to the right side of the law wherever possible— If that meant being pedantic, so be it.

“No.”

“It’s thematically appropriate. You’ll see,” Jason said, ignoring him.

They swapped the tractor for the farm truck and took the road into town, where they filled up a bedfull of yellow diesel cans at the fuel station before stopping into Smallville’s single restaurant for lunch.

Jason took a seat facing the door— the one Bruce himself was drawn to. He sat across instead and moved the chair slightly so as not to impede his view.

They both ordered cheeseburgers, one with fries and one with onion rings. Jason toyed with the salt shaker while they waited, scraping grains of salt together on the plasticized gingham tablecloth. The tiny pile was employed in propping the shaker on its edge, balanced impossibly mid-tilt. Jason sat back with a self-satisfied grin.

He set to the same feat with the pepper shaker, but Bruce watched  _ him, _ instead. His wavy black hair was windblown from driving with the glass rolled down, the tuft of white hanging into his blue-turned-green eyes. His mind tried to overlay the Jason of Before to this stranger— it was definitely the same boy but with the features of a grown man, from the broadened shoulders right down to the stubble. Would he have still grown into this, if he hadn’t?...

Bruce grimaced. Practically all of their contact up until now had been either mask or Cave related, with no opportunity to simply observe Jason  _ being,  _ not fighting or posturing or prickling at his every move. That was partly by design— if Jason wanted to stay away from Bruce, he conceded that it was sound judgement. He would not aggress more agony into Jason’s life.

And yet, here he was, this familiar-unfamiliar young man that was his boy and wasn’t. For reasons known only to himself, he had volunteered his time even though it must be spent in Bruce’s company.

“If you take a picture,” Jason said suddenly, though still focused on the balancing act, “it’ll last longer.”

Bruce frowned and turned his attention to the specials board across the room. Someone had misspelled the pie of the day—  _ ruwbarb.  _ “Sorry.”

“Do you stare creepily at  _ all _ of your lunch dates?” He almost had the pepper shaker balanced next to the salt, but the floor shook with a passing customer and felled them both.

“Usually.”

Jason snorted and swept all the seasoning off the table. 

“You don’t get many second dates, huh.”

“Not many first ones either.”

Jason tutted. “If you aren’t careful, you’ll unsully your playboy reputation.”

“Mm.” He tapped the tabletop absently. “I have two kids. I can _ unsully _ a little.”

A wincing hurt pinched Jason’s face just as he realized what he’d said. 

Why was he so terrible at this? “Jason,” he began, struggling to recover. “You know what I meant. To the media... you’re still—”

“Yeah. Whatever. I get it.” Jason wasn’t looking at him anymore, expression carefully smoothed over and giving nothing else away.

_ You’re my son, too,  _ he wanted to insist, but the set of Jason’s mouth was ready to fling anything he said back in his face.  _ You always have been and always will be. _

The food came, and they passed the rest of their lunch in silence.

——

Jason abandoned the radio repartee for the bare minimum of communication necessary to the work. Bruce had ruined any rapport they’d had with one slip of the tongue, and he didn’t know how to salvage it. He didn’t know what he’d done to get it in the _ first place. _

_ Martha would know,  _ he thought suddenly. It was all her fault, to begin with— just weeks after meeting the Kents, he’d let a tiny acrobat into his life. He’d… more than allowed it. He’d  _ wanted  _ it. In the back of his mind, he’d seen the Kent family photos and felt fiercely that maybe he could provide that for an orphan like him, someone with only a few surviving relics of a childhood still whole and complete. For a while, it worked. The brightness of that child almost healed the ache Bruce had resigned himself to suffering for the rest of his life, gave him hope that there was  _ more  _ than just treading water until it was time to die.

For a while.

His dark corners were simply illuminated, not torn down. As Dick got older, he started to get to know their shape. It repulsed him, finding out what Bruce truly was; and rightly so. He’d fooled this child into believing he was some kind of hero, just to betray him down the line with the truth— something in him was broken, and jagged, and dark, and it would never heal. Not him, not anyone else.

It hurt when Dick left. But deep down, he knew it was better that way. Dick was a sphere, all open, honest curves and no shadows. Leaving protected him against Bruce’s sharp geometry before it could distort his shape.

But Jason— he saw it right away.

Dick overlooked the darkness until he was grown, and then the realization hit like a betrayal. But Jason saw it from the very beginning. He feared it because he knew what it was, what it was capable of.

The shape in him was jagged and sharp, too.

Jason checked in from the grain bin.

_ “Something’s jammed. Gonna take a look.” _

“Jammed,” he repeated, quickly dispelling the morass of his thoughts.  _ “What  _ is jammed.”

There was no reply. He stopped, lifted the header and stared at the handheld. Jammed. There were only a few mechanisms involved in loading the grain bin, and none of them were to be trifled with.

“Jason.  _ Do not  _ go inside the bin— do you copy?” He leaned out of the cab, trying to glimpse him but the corn obscured the ground level of the distant structure. It was two or three stories tall, with a storage capacity in the  _ hundreds of tons _ of corn, circulated by a massive auger, with the potential for voids to lie in wait to consume anyone so foolish as to walk across the top of the grain.

He cursed under his breath and turned the machine around. “Jason.  _ Do you copy.” _

The combine bounced roughly over the rutted field as he pushed it faster and threw down the radio in frustration. If Jason wasn’t in the tractor, it was useless. Better to focus on driving this hulking machine without losing control— of it, or himself.

In the mask, their mission was to go in harm’s way. This was something Bruce readily accepted for himself. For others, for his children, it was a near thing. He couldn’t stop them, not really; he could only give them a cape and hope that they confined their dangerous choices to the times they were wearing it. In the uniform, they were soldiers foremost. Batman was their commander. The distinction meant that the terror Bruce felt as a father could be smashed down in favor of Batman’s clarity, and that’s what got everyone home alive every night.

Because in war, casualty is the rule, not the exception. Peril and injury is expected, and it’s possible to prepare for the expected. The reality about soldiers is that soldiers get hurt.

Sometimes soldiers die. 

But the man ignoring his orders now was not Red Hood. Not Robin.

It was Jason.

And Batman had no jurisdiction over Bruce’s son.

Bruce was sweating. Every horrible thought Batman had ever suppressed in the unknown moments between sensing danger to his kids and eliminating that danger was pounding through his head like a hammer. Every memory of blood and contusion on innocent flesh that Batman had filed under something more useful than pure, unadulterated panic.

Batman could hide behind a plaque that read  _ A Good Soldier.  _ Bruce Wayne had no such recourse.

He seemed to lose time between pushing speed on the combine and standing at the top of the grain bin ladder, frantically scanning the corn within. Nothing.

_ “Jason!”  _ A person could survive without air for approximately six to fifteen minutes. Crushed in on all sides by hundreds of thousands of pounds, probably less. Pushed to the bottom and caught in a revolving shaft—

Much, much less.

_ “Jason!”  _ Jumping inside himself wasn’t an option. A wall would have to be cut away to drain the corn, and the nearest tool capable of that was in the barn, retrievable in maybe three minutes, made anywhere close to useful in maybe five or six and he’d already wasted three or four minutes since he’d last spoken to Jason, and he could not live with himself knowing he’d died for the final time thinking Bruce had rejected him as a son—

“What the hell are you  _ doing _ up there?”

And there he was. Thumb hooked in his belt and scowling quizzically up at Bruce.

Bruce found himself on the ground again, taking short breaths in front of Jason, who was looking at him like he had a screw loose. “Why,” he croaked, and swallowed. “Why didn’t you  _ answer the radio?” _

Jason gestured vaguely to the other side of the grain bin. “Nature called.”

Relief was indistinguishable from anger at that moment. “You said it was jammed,” he growled.

“Yeah? I was about to take a look when I heard you yelling like a psycho over here. By the way, what the hell? Do you really think I’m _stupid_ enough to high dive into that death trap? Do you treat _everyone_ like they’re brain-dead, or just me?”

With that, Bruce the Father’s last thread of control snapped.  _ “How am I supposed to know,”  _ he roared. “Your last act as Robin was to disobey an order _.  _ You disappear for  _ three years,  _ you join the League of Assassins—” He had to take a breath. “What am I  _ supposed _ to think?”

Jason recoiled from his outburst and came back with fury to match. “Why the  _ fuck  _ did you ask me to come, then? Why not  _ Golden Boy  _ or the  _ Replacement?” _

Bruce stuttered on a less callous answer, but Jason saw straight through to the truth.

Like always.

For a moment he was wide-eyed and young. “You _ did  _ ask them _ ,  _ didn’t you?” He shook his head on a forced, bitter laugh. “I should have known better than to think you actually  _ wanted  _ me here. I’m just the  _ last resort.” _

“Jay—”

_ “Fuck you,” _ he snarled, throwing his gloves down. “I quit.” He stalked towards the truck.

“Dammit,  _ wait,”  _ Bruce called, but Jason slammed the door and let the pickup kick dust in his face.

Bruce stood alone, breathing hard and watching the truck recede to the specks of house and barn in the distance.

His helper was gone, but the work remained. After fixing the conveyor to the grain bin (which turned out to be a minor, easy and safe fix) it took easily three or four times as long to work both jobs himself, stopping the combine to load and unload corn and vice versa. It at least distracted him from his fuming, though, and by the time he brought the tractor to the house his anger had cooled into something more passive aggressive than belligerent.

He was exhausted. Both arms were sore— the bad one from being pushed to the limit, the good one from overcompensating. Still, Bruce spent a little time readjusting the harvester before going in, not particularly eager to face his frustrating, shapeless quandary with Jason. Turning bolts and hammering stubborn joints was infinitely preferable to trying to guess the right words and guessing wrong every time. 

On his eventual return to the house, repetitive striking sounds drew him around the corner where the woodpile was stacked. Jason was adding to it, standing unsplit logs on the chopping block and sinking an axe neatly through their center. His bare back was to Bruce.

Bruce changed course to approach, tongue suddenly heavy with reprimand. He’d finished the north field, but with Jason’s absence they were behind schedule. Without his help, the job was likely to stretch until the Kents’ return, and by then the crop would be past its peak quality. He chose his words for optimum effect.

Now that he was closer, he saw that Jason’s skin was lathered with sweat. His shed shirt was thrown over the porch railing.

Bruce’s breath caught.

The last time he’d seen Jason’s body down to the skin in any detail was the day he’d died. Those images were branded into his retinas— the crushed bones, the blood on burns on blood— and before that, he’d been familiar with the small marks he’d sustained before and after coming to the Manor. There was no hint of any of them now.

The Pit had made his old life disappear, but his new one had already stamped his skin with a staggering number of cruel scars. Two gunshot wounds, several crisscrossing lacerations, stabs, suture marks and raised keloids— all were of unknown origin. The jagged spray of reddish pebbling was probably from the motorcycle accident, based on Alfred’s description of the injuries.

As for the rest… they had to be from the League of Assassins.

He was drawn closer and closer, a different fury building— what had they  _ done  _ to him? He would demand answers, and he’d—

The one on Jason’s neck stopped him cold.

It was deep, puckered. Suture marks were distorted by contracted tissue. Bruce had never seen it healed, somehow— the shadow of his collar must keep it covered. How else could Bruce have never noticed it, or the way it shone an accusing, silvery white in the setting sun?

“I’d tell you to take a picture, but I  _ know _ you have the footage from that one.” Bruce was so shocked that he hadn’t registered Jason turning to glare at him. “I bet there’s a still from it taped to the  _ Jason Todd Memorial Practice Dummy.” _

When Bruce didn’t speak, he scoffed and put another log on the block. “You know,” he said, bringing the axe down with more force than necessary, “most people would take the opportunity to apologize  _ profusely _ for that right about now.” He kicked the split pieces away and grabbed a new victim. “I mean, even if you’re  _ lying,  _ it’s kinda just  _ what you do  _ if you care about being on speaking terms and not  _ ballistic terms.”  _ He put his whole body into the next swing, the split wood flying.

Bruce swallowed back bile and looked away, feeling disconnected from his body. He could float away, if his son’s hatred wasn’t pinning him to the earth. “I can’t,” he managed.

Jason lodged the axehead in the block with a furious  _ thwock. _ “All’s fair in love and war, huh?” he sneered. “It was in service to the  _ mission,  _ so it’s what?  _ Heretical  _ to say you’re sorry for  _ cutting my throat?” _

_ I am. I am sorry.  _ “Jason…”

“Save it. Unless you’re begging forgiveness, I don’t want to hear whatever self-righteous bullshit you’re about to spew at me.”

Paralyzed silence stretched until Jason’s face twisted in vehement disgust,  _ that’s what I thought  _ about to burst from his taut shoulders.

Bruce unseized his vocal cords in the last moment. “I would never ask you to...  _ forgive _ the unforgivable.”

Jason stopped short, his ever-suspicious eyes glued to Bruce.

_ I do not have the words to describe the putrefaction of my soul to you.  _ “I do not..  _ deserve  _ your forgiveness. I will not demean  _ you _ , your  _ pain  _ by demanding that you lower yourself to forgiving me for... for  _ anything _ .”

He let the wind take him.

The sensation of the batarang leaving his hand, the instant ice of horror as he realized the trajectory to which it was committed, the shock and mortal fear in his son’s eyes as waves of arterial red rushed down his neck, on the floor, on Bruce’s hands, the kevlar slick against body armor as he forced the struggling boy to stillness with a knee on his chest while he shoved bare fingers into the cut, desperate to pinch the bleed and stop the wet, dying gasps and all the while,  _ manic laughter—  _

Bruce made it to the downstairs bathroom before he vomited.

A severed carotid artery or jugular vein wasn’t _instantaneous_ death. But it was so close as to be a mere technicality. There were only five to fifteen seconds before unconsciousness and rapid brain death from hypoxia ensued. And he’d _done it._ _He_ had done it. He’d flinched between maiming his son’s sight with a batarang to the eye and risking a bullet in Joker’s brain with a batarang to the trigger finger, and he’d twitched into an unthinkably, _unbearably_ stupid mistake, one so surreally abhorrent that he regularly mistook the memory for nightmare. It sickened him.

The one promise he’d truly given Jason— that he was safe in his hands— broken.

For the sake of the  _ Joker. _

He retched again.

A few minutes sitting on the cold tile cleared his head enough to get up, let autopilot bring his numb body to the kitchen, go through the motions of putting a frozen pizza in the oven. He scrolled unseeingly through email, deleting them without reading, until the oven timer went off.

Jason appeared in his periphery as he was taking the pizza out. He was in sweatpants and a red shirt, hair still dripping wet. He leaned a hip on the counter next to the oven while Bruce used the pizza cutter.

“Wow. It’s downright domestic in here, B,” he observed lightly. “Who taught you to nuke pizza?”

There was no energy left in him to roll his eyes or snark that he  _ could  _ follow three-step directions, even if occasionally more important things drew his attention away long enough to despair of the fine line between  _ crisp  _ and  _ burnt _ . It took too much concentration to see tomato sauce and remember coagulated blood without throwing up. 

Jason cleared his throat, bumping a heel against the base of the cabinets. “Hey. So, uh, earlier. I mighta... misunderstood. I forgot how insufferable you are when you’re shitting yourself.” There was wryness in his voice, but he couldn’t make himself look up to gauge his expression. “Anyway. Sorry for leaving you hanging out there. I’ll make it up tomorrow.”

He nodded stiffly. An apology. From Jason.

The water was swallowing him, drawing him deeper into the submerged corners of his shape— an underwater cave from which there was no surfacing. He had to get out of this room, away from Jason’s attempt to connect, before he sucked them both down to the sea floor like an anchor jams in rock. 

He saw himself put the cutter in the dishwasher and the kitchen tiles move beneath his feet, sensed the green eyes still chasing his siren’s call. 

“...B? You gonna eat?”

Bruce shook his head and went upstairs to throw up again.

—— 

Sleep did not have the desired effect.

His waking nightmare transitioned seamlessly into the usual variety, and his subconscious expounded on his misery in ways his waking mind could not even bear to contemplate.

Jason’s blood was pouring fast and hot over his hands when pounding footsteps and an ear-splitting  _ thwack _ rent him from his ugly dreams.

The blood and terror dissolved into Jason’s rigid silhouette swinging a pistol into the kitschy darkness of the Kent house. He lowered it to the floor and looked at Bruce with wild eyes, breathless.

“Are you  _ actually dying, _ or was it a nightmare?”

Bruce wasn’t in bed. He was standing  _ beside _ the bed, soaked in sweat, throat raw and struck dumb at the walking, talking,  _ aliveness  _ of the wide eyed young man clicking the safety on his gun and hissing a sigh into the ensuing silence.

Bruce had to be sure. “You okay?”

“Am _I?…”_ Jason repeated incredulously. _“I’m_ not the one screaming _bloody_ _murder_ at _four in the morning,”_ Jason snapped, then rubbed his face roughly. He was calmer but no less biting when he next spoke. “Well? You were calling me, so who was the lucky rogue smoking ol’ Jason Todd this time? Joker? Black Mask? _Killer Moth?”_

Sarcastic but intact. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, lest the apparition fade and the tacky blood on his hands be found the unbearable reality.

“Me,” he said hoarsely. He wanted to feel the boy solid and whole against his hand, without the taut flinch of survival and  _ violence  _ pushing back. But the toxic aura surrounding Bruce would not permit it. His touch was pain.  _ Poison. _

Jason said nothing, but squinted in the dim light and took a small step forward.

Bruce took a long one back.

The boy scowled. “We’ve already discussed the fact that I’m not out to get you. Calm down.”

Better if he was. Offense is the best defense.

Jason frowned and flipped the light switch, laying the pistol on the dresser.  _ No. Keep it,  _ Bruce thought, tensing at his approach and the sensation of his little boy’s choked, gurgling gasps under his knees, staring up at him with terror and  _ betrayal. _

He stood frozen, unwilling to relinquish control over a single muscle fiber as Jason’s fingers propped one of his eyes open to inspect his pupil. “Are you high?” he muttered. “Because you are  _ freaked.” _

Bruce didn’t dare to breathe, choosing to focus elsewhere. It was easier to pretend he wasn’t there, that these sensations didn’t belong to him than to feel the ghost of every blow he’d ever landed to his son’s, his  _ child’s,  _ body.

A sharp snap of fingers startled him back into himself. Jason’s mouth pursed. “Goddamnit,” he muttered. “You’re making it hard to stay pissed at you right now.” A long silence passed in which they stood staring at one another, Bruce warily and Jason in consideration.

At length he sighed, raised his eyebrows and spread his arms.

Bruce didn’t move, panic loosening his tongue. “I… I might…”

Jason remained unimpressed. “What, go postal? Doubt it. I hate to break this to you, but I’ve been on the wrong end of one of your ass whippings. You don’t exude _kicked_ _puppy_ when that’s about to happen.”

So it was burned into Jason’s memory, too. Of course it was. His father had beaten him into submission,  _ nicked his carotid— _

Jason rolled his eyes in exasperation and moved forward anyway, closing the distance like Bruce hadn’t and  _ would  _ never hurt him. He wrapped his arms around Bruce with a rough pat on the back.

Nerve fibers sent shocks of alarm to Bruce’s brain, demanding opposition and eagerness at once. Skin was for fighting. Hurting. Himself, but especially others. Yet this was the same son he had moments ago been frantic to feel the solidity of, find assurance that this was reality. To protect. To keep safe. To repair. Any and everything to erase the feeling of murder from his hands.

The mix was caustic, burning for more and burning for escape at every point of contact. He tried to retreat. 

Jason didn’t let him. “Alrighty. Here’s how this is going to go down,” he said.  _ “You’re  _ gonna remember how to breathe.  _ I’m  _ gonna stay right here until you do. Simple?”

Bruce couldn’t breathe. If he did, the burn for escape might prove the stronger.

“I’m dead serious, old man. Stop holding your breath or I’m dropping you on your ass when you pass out.”

A cautious burst of air darted in. It helped clear the prickling of unworthy disgust under Jason’s broad hands.

Jason rested one of them at the nape of his neck, pushing him closer against his ear. Jason still carried the scent of soap and the fabric softener from the guest room sheets. 

“Yep. Just like that.”

Bruce shakily followed suit as he pressed his hand to the back of the boy’s neck, his fingertips just touching the savage crease he’d wrought. The pulse beat too close to the surface, throbbing like it may burst through tissue paper skin at the slightest snag. “I nearly killed you,” he whispered.

Jason shrugged slightly. “Yeah, you and everybody else. Trust me, you’re the only one who feels bad about it.”

Those words tipped something in him, and the burning changed. He crushed Jason to his chest like he could weld them together, two hearts for one being, and heaved a shuddering breath. There were more ways than one to get hurt. Some of them were perfectly bloodless, and that’s what tugged him now. “More than you’ll ever know.”

Jason’s voice was suddenly thick. “You know what I was thinking, when I realized that it was curtains for the Red Hood? I was thinking,  _ at least Dad is here this time.” _

His breath hitched, and Bruce held him tighter to keep himself from falling apart.

“All I wanted was you,” Jason said. “And you were  _ there _ , you were trying to hold me together. I was… I was okay with it. As far as dying goes, I’ve had worse... I mean, you were still a  _ fucking moron,  _ but I knew you weren’t actually  _ trying  _ to kill me.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, face in his curls.  _ “I’m so _ sorry. I wish...”  _ I wish I was the father you deserve. _

A small, soft laugh interrupted him. “Bruce. I’ve always known you were a little bit of a psycho. But, you’re  _ my  _ kind of psycho.” A sniffle, and he cleared his throat. “Anyway, I thought I probably deserved it, or I’d have tapped out.”

That was its own stab of grief.

He rocked them slightly, finding suddenly that Jason wasn’t hugging  _ him  _ anymore— he was hugging  _ Jason. _

The last of his rigid struggle melted as his son sighed relief into his neck. It felt like the first time Jason had crept to him after a nightmare, at his limit and piercing right through Bruce with the silent demand,  _ am I really safe with you?  _ before his grim eyes thawed into his  _ other  _ shape— the small, frightened kid that was fraying at the seams from the strain of never letting his guard down.

“I love you,” Bruce murmured, knowing it was the right thing to say without having to guess.

“Good, because me loving you would be kind of awkward if you didn’t.”

Bruce laughed, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that, or the last time he felt his eyes prickle with tears. He breathed and tried to brand this moment into his senses.

Finally he tapped Jason’s shoulder twice, and his son let him go. 

“Oh so you  _ do  _ remember how this works,” Jason said, smiling crookedly. His eyes shone wetly too.

A smile tugged at his mouth. “Always.”

Jason sniffed and looked at the ceiling. “Christ,” he muttered, scrubbing his eyes with the back of a hand.

“Well,” he said, “if we’re done getting all weepy here, you hungry? I’m thinking  _ kickass omelettes.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s 2 am and now I want an omelette


	3. Blight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce really does want to be a good dad. Sometimes he sabotages himself.  
> Jason really does want to be a good son. Sometimes cows sabotage him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I split the final chapter in half, so now there's this one with above average angst and the next one with above average fluff, followed by an epilogue AND an illustration of the photo Jason took of Bruce getting his crop yield analysis on... perhaps with others. :)
> 
> Now with Bonus Tim Drake! Mostly as a foil to Jason.
> 
> My departure from canon will be more obvious in Jason's backstory. I'm writing subtle emotion drama so I craved some unambiguous evil to balance the flavors.
> 
> There's a couple lines alluding to possible suicidal ideation in this chapter. That's about it so I won't add a tag, but just fyi.

After breakfast, they stuffed their pockets with protein bars and bottled water for a pre-dawn start on the work. After working through lunch and resolving a minor setback involving a mud bog and a dangerously listing grain cart, they managed to come out ahead of schedule by three in the afternoon. At that point Jason convinced Bruce to let him drive the combine, which he excelled at (although his request to finally drive the Batmobile was still pending). Bruce, however, missed about a hundred pounds of corn with the grain cart, much to Jason’s amusement. They called it a day at five, returning to the barn tired but satisfied that the work was well underway. Things were relaxed between them. There were no blow-ups, no sullen tensions, no gruesome farm accidents. Ostensibly, it was pastoral bliss.

So  _ why _ did Bruce feel like he’d taken a shotgun blast to the chest?

He’d stayed busy. Jason evidently didn’t  _ loathe  _ him, at least for the moment. No one he cared about had  _ died _ , as far as he knew. He hadn’t been injured lately, hadn’t even been training except for running. There was no logical reason to feel the specter of a sucking chest wound following him everywhere.

He’d had one of those. He would know.

After the morning’s... _ incident, _ even breakfast went smoothly. Jason’s omelettes were, in a word,  _ impressive.  _ Fresh eggs from the coop, local sausage he’d found in the freezer, some kind of greenery sprinkled over the top— they were to rival Alfred’s. 

Bruce hadn’t imagined Jason with any more household skills than Dick or Tim— who were next to hopeless without a butler. He’d been living on his own for some time now, but so had the other boys, and they hadn’t spawned much domestic initiative by that alone.

He was reminded how little time he’d spent with Jason. What else had he missed?

Maybe that was the moment the hesitant relief turned to acid. Or, maybe it was when he realized that the scar on Jason’s neck was easy to spot under the hem of his shirt collar if you knew to look. And all the other scars. How was Bruce any better than the League of Assassins?

“B,  _ I swear to God,  _ if you’re gonna stare at me, at least make conversation while you’re doing it,” Jason had said.

Bruce frowned at the eggs. “This is… very good.”

“Damn straight— it’s Alfred’s recipe.”

“No. It’s better.”

“Kiss-ass,” Jason quipped, but he was smiling behind his fork. 

That wasn’t the moment. But it should have been a positive stimulus, by his estimation. If not _happy—_ for that was a truly rare phenomenon in his life— at least _neutral._ The last time he felt this way, he’d just buried Jason and was brutally terrorizing the dark corners of Gotham every night just to get his mind off the pain.

Jason was right here. So why did he feel so scraped raw?

They lingered outside after retiring the machinery to the barn, soaking in the cool evening.

Or, in Bruce’s case, slowly simmering in it.

“Check it out, Murder Burger’s here for a visit.”

Beauford the bull had wandered near the fence, black fur almost close enough to touch. Jason stretched and tried to smooch him closer, stepping through the slats to get a longer reach.

The smoke cleared a little to make way for alarm. Bruce grabbed the back of his shirt. “Stay out of the bullpen, Jay.”

“I’m not _ in  _ the bullpen, I’m  _ on the cusp _ of the bullpen. Let go.”

“Hn.” Bruce didn’t let go of his shirt. “Get off the  _ cusp _ of the bullpen.”

Jason clucked, and Beauford finally took a lumbering step towards the fence, his dark eye uninterested and above the indignity of petting.

The bull swung his head almost into Jason’s hand, but he cursed in surprise and shoved backwards so suddenly against Bruce that the bull snorted and jumped away. He stumbled back, eyes distant and dark.

Bruce used to see that look often. Wide and black, trying to see every angle at once and parse the danger, see what it would take to survive the next few seconds. “...Jay?”

Jason didn’t look, but he raised an arm in his direction to ward him off.  _ “Fuck.”  _

Bruce stayed back. “What is it?”

He shut his eyes and shook his head against some wayward thought. “I gotta… I can’t stay here.” He all but jogged away, disappearing around the corner.

Bruce let him go, glancing at the bull. It was ordinary to him, and apparently ordinary to Jason or he wouldn’t have been so determined to touch it. He’d reacted only after getting a clear view of its head, which again, seemed perfectly normal to Bruce. The only point of interest was a steel ring piercing its nose. Livestock control was not his area of expertise, but that too was normal as far as he was aware.

He wasn’t sure  _ what  _ had just happened, but trying to catch Jason when he needed space was always a risky proposition. Better to let him cool off a little in privacy first—

A slammed door and an engine start cut off his thought. His instinct was to intercept— he wanted to give Jason space, but he didn’t want him running off to parts unknown.

Running bodily after the truck throwing gravel down the driveway was useless. Chasing in the car would probably be counterproductive. After a moment’s contemplation he pulled out his phone and listened to it ring and ring, frustration building until he realized that there was a tinny sound emanating from the barn.

It led him to the tractor. Jason’s phone rattled in a cupholder, forgotten.

He threw himself into the cab seat, consternated. Without the phone, he couldn’t easily pinpoint Jason should it come to that. Why hadn’t he given everyone subdermal trackers already?

The farm truck  _ was _ equipped with a CB radio, although there was no guarantee it would be on. Bruce picked up the tractor’s handheld anyway.

“Jason? Do you copy?”

Nothing but static.

He swallowed his pride for a moment. “...Cycle Smoker? Are you on?”

A few moments passed, during which he only felt a little stupid, before a transmission came in.

_ “B. I’m going for a drive,” _ Jason said, sounding hollow and flat. _ “Don’t wait up. Over and out.” _

Night fell with no sign of Jason.

Bruce waited up.

All three of his boys used to sit up until Bruce came back from patrol. He suspected they still did, when they were at the Manor. He tried to discourage it for the sake of their growing sleep debt, but that rarely worked. And… it  _ did _ tend to get him home sooner.

Knowing someone depended on his return made staying alive easier.

The image of his son receiving the news that his father would never return, orphaned yet again, held him back.

When he patrolled with Robin, the same principle applied with the additional imperative of protecting his young apprentice. The pleasure of refining raw potential into skill made his heart soar, but also made him scrupulously careful— screening every situation against Robin’s current skill level and avoiding any excessive danger. Some nights that meant letting criminals within his capability escape, in favor of making sure Robin got home safe. 

After Dick left home, his restraint started to slide. But soon enough Jason reinforced it, built it up even into Bruce Wayne’s life with his constant boundary testing.

After Jason… well.

There was no one needing him at home to counter the devouring need of his city, and he was ready to let her consume him entirely. All the magic had turned to a searing flame.

Training Tim was a grudging task that he undertook with the same diligence of rescuing teenagers from their own stupidity— he disapproved, but the last thing he wanted was Tim getting killed rather than learning his lesson. To do that, he needed to stay sharp and moderate the risk to himself. The blaze tempered into something callous and hard. He pushed Tim harder than he ever had with the others, almost to misery. He withheld the smoldering ashes of magic, sure that any day the boy would be driven to quit entirely and find saner outlets for his time.

Alone, he could distract himself from the gaping wound Jason left. But Robin was an albatross. Tim, no matter how bright and willing, was overshadowed by failure. Batman tolerated him. Bruce could not.

Tim accepted his place at arms length without complaint.

His first injury as Robin seemed like a natural opportunity to dissuade him from the path for good. It was a painful but not particularly serious one— just bruising to the abdomen. Examination confirmed no internal damage, and Bruce sent him home to his parents with instructions to seek their help for his ‘bicycle accident’ as necessary and orders to stay off the streets until fully healed.

He fantasized about that being that.

At least until Alfred cornered him in his study the next morning.

Bruce waved a hand over his desk without looking up. “Busy.”

Alfred folded his hands behind his back, an innocuous movement that signalled resolution. “Sir. The lad was rather...  _ shaken  _ after last night’s misadventure.”

“Good,” he muttered, collecting several papers together into a ‘sign and forget’ pile.

“Excuse me, sir?” Alfred asked flatly, in the tone that meant he had heard perfectly and was offering the chance to amend a blunder.

Bruce sighed and flicked his pen onto the desk. He met Alfred’s ice with the fire.  _ “Fear  _ is a gift. It will keep him alive. If he has any  _ sense,  _ that will take the form of  _ quitting.” _

“That is precisely my point,” Alfred said tightly. “Your  _ fear  _ for that boy has kept  _ you  _ alive these past months. He is  _ due  _ a modicum of your attention in return.”

“My  _ attention?”  _ Bruce laughed harshly. “I can’t pry my attention  _ away  _ from him. When I’m not  _ training  _ him I’m drilling him on bookwork, not to mention looking after him on patrol.”

“I am not speaking of  _ Batman  _ and  _ Robin,”  _ Alfred said sharply. “I speak of  _ Bruce Wayne  _ and  _ Tim Drake.  _ Or do you truly think he forgets you the instant he leaves the Cave?”

“He should,” Bruce snapped. “There’s nothing I can offer him that he doesn’t already have. Nothing  _ good.”  _ Tim had more than food, shelter, and clothing— he had law abiding parents. He had a well maintained home. Private school. He lacked nothing.

Alfred pinched his eyes shut and released a long breath. His reply was mild but firm. “I suspect he  _ does _ have need of you, your self-flagellation notwithstanding,” he said. “I will be delighted to be proven wrong, but I’m afraid that is an investigation you must conduct  _ personally _ .”

They entered a staredown.

It ended in a visit to the Drakes’.

Bruce knocked, putting together a half-formed explanation for his presence while he waited. Something about Dick, probably. They could conceivably be civilian friends, and the Drakes would be pleased to hear their son was ‘networking.’ 

After a long time and several more knocks and doorbell rings he would have given up if not for the peculiarities— the newspapers stacked outside the front door; the vacant air to the dark interior; the matte doorknob unpolished by regular use. He almost expected a ‘For Sale’ sign in the yard.

Bruce amended his excuse to suit breaking in uninvited while he disabled the security system.  _ Goodness, the door was unlocked, I hope you don’t mind— _

The house echoed with pristine emptiness, furnished but devoid of personal effects. It bore a striking resemblance to the Manor of his youth— sterile. Waiting. This was Tim’s home, but it was hard to imagine him  _ living  _ here, spending time with his parents in the den or doing homework in the kitchen. He wondered if there were any photos of them together, transforming these cold rooms with familial warmth. “Tim?”

Jason used to point out his old haunts on patrol. Willis’ apartment. The Italian restaurant that laundered money and threw out a ton of food every night. A back alley with an air conditioning unit that fashioned a warm corner to sleep in. The public bathrooms where ‘tolerates the homeless’ and ‘has the least dirty needles’ intersected. An abandoned hole in the wall that leaked a little when it rained, but he had no competition for. The warehouse with the best ‘cardboard condos.’

Before Bruce, everything Jason  _ had _ he scraped. It took weeks before he stopped bolting food and hoarding secret stashes of supplies that he could grab and run with at a moment’s notice. His destitution had been profound, but as much as it wrenched Bruce’s heart to imagine him in those places eking out an existence, Jason hadn’t wasted any energy feeling sorry for himself. When an opportunity for a more stable situation appeared, he took it despite his misgivings about Bruce. Robin lifted him up, gave him back the power he’d been stripped of.

For once, something about Jason reminded Bruce of Tim.

The only sign of life was the open cabinet in the kitchen, apparently the medicine cabinet. He paused to read the neat entries on a wall calendar, noting the arrow drawn down through Wednesdays and  _ ‘Mrs. Mac’  _ printed next to it. He turned back to last month and frowned. On the second was written  _ ‘Bolivia— back in 2 months.’  _ He flipped forward to next month, where  _ ‘Mom & Dad— home?’  _ was pencilled.

Flipping through the rest revealed several completed trips where the return date had been crossed out and pushed back. If it was accurate, Tim’s parents had spent a grand total of four weeks at home in the last six months.

Jason’s parents wouldn’t be winning any posthumous child-rearing awards, but even  _ they _ had been around more than that. When they were gone, it had been more than Jason’s struggle to survive that tugged at Bruce. It was that he was doing it  _ alone.  _ That the bleak, loveless days were his only mentor, guiding him steadily toward a bleaker and more loveless life, only a thief’s prayer guarding his sleep.

Tim’s life wasn’t voided by tragedy, loss, or even hard luck. Because of this Bruce assumed he had no terminal quest for family or purpose— it was misplaced gallantry. A fool’s errand.

Bruce had miscalculated.

It wasn’t delusions of grandeur that drew him to Batman. It was the exact same thing that made up a streetwise pickpocket’s mind to get in the Batmobile and to follow wherever Bruce may go: the promise of somewhere safe and warm to lay down at night.

Bruce dropped the calendar on the counter, pinching the bridge of his nose while he continued his mental arithmetic. Tim had lied about his parents being home nearly every time he’d been asked. And Bruce had sent him away with an injury under the pretense of having his  _ parents _ keep watch on it— armed with a tame story, of course. He felt a blaze of indignation on Tim’s behalf— was there  _ anyone  _ watching him?  _ “Tim?” _

He checked tidy upstairs bedrooms with perfectly made beds until he came to the only closed door, and that’s where he discovered Tim Drake.

On the floor, feet from an orange prescription bottle marked JANET DRAKE, scarcely breathing and completely mute to questions like  _ how much, when, and why _ ; equally deaf to Bruce’s fraught  _ Naloxone, Alfred. Out front. Two minutes.  _ Pinprick pupils tracked the hands gathering him to curl limp against Bruce’s chest.

The last time he’d done this, Jason, cold and white—

His thoughts were reduced to snapshots until Tim was out of danger, subject to later perusal.

_ An accident, or?... _

_ Would Tim do that? _

If the person he needed most left him forsaken, hurting and scared, Bruce might.

Jason might.

——

At three hours, Bruce tried not to think. He did anyway.

He surrendered to his instincts and got in the car.

Smallville’s dearth of destinations meant only a handful of places to check in town, and he didn’t spot the pickup at any of them. He drove through parking lots and behind buildings just to be sure, then started on the small residential neighborhoods gathered around the town’s center. It was unlikely he’d be at any of the houses— he hoped they might cross paths doing just as he said, driving around. He checked the K through 12 school campus, getting out to walk between the gym and cafeteria. He paused to study the town mechanic’s lot lest the farm truck was camouflaged amongst the other dented and abused utility vehicles there. He even circled the water treatment plant.

If Jason had intended to leave indefinitely, he would have taken Bruce’s car, not the Kents’ truck. Bruce had more where that came from. The Kents would expect the truck back. So he had to be relatively close.

He was about to begin the laborious task of searching the county backroads one by one when he saw it— and cursed under his breath, partly in exasperation with Jason and partly in exasperation with himself. This was the first place he should have looked.

The empty truck was mostly obscured by a few small sycamore trees and the corner of a tall chain link fence. Tucking the car alongside, Bruce got out and grimaced up at the town water tower.

It was an old style, scarred by many years of service and patched in hopes of many more. Faded paint declaring “SMALLVILLE” fought a losing battle against streaks of rust. A mostly-straight ladder crawled all the way up to the conical roof.

He didn’t need to be the world’s greatest detective to guess where he’d find Jason.

There was a spare Batsuit and associated gear stashed in the car’s secret storage, but he reached for his more unobtrusive utility belt and took an extra grapple gun. He was more than capable of the climb even with the nagging of his recently healed arm, but it was better to have it and not need it than to need it and freefall five stories.

Or to let someone else freefall five stories.

Would Jason do that?

The climb quieted the roar of his thoughts, a father’s paranoia curbed by a commander’s call to duty. He’d performed hundreds of rooftop rescues of one sort or another, almost to the point of muscle memory. This was nothing new between Batman and Red Hood.

Although. Bruce and Jason were a team untested.

Bruce deliberately made some noise on the last few rungs. Sloped roofs were bad places to be startled, and this one was only about twelve or so feet in diameter.

But Jason was already watching the ladder with hooded eyes, sprawled on his back, one hand behind his head and the other resting a half-empty whiskey bottle on his stomach. “Figured you’d come sniffing around sooner or later,” he mumbled. “Guess it’s later.”

Noting the bottle with dismay, Bruce cautiously edged closer and sat down by his shoulder. “How long have you been here.”

Jason shrugged, waving the bottle indistinctly. “Dunno. An hour.” The whiskey sloshed as he dropped it back to his stomach. “Long enough t’realize my alcohol tolerance’s turned to  _ shit  _ … d’you know how much fuckin’ booze it took to get drunk after a swim in  _ Ye Olde Lazarus Pit?”  _ He leveled Bruce a portentous glower. “A  _ fuck ton.” _

Bruce didn’t bother to ask why he’d chosen to get drunk up  _ here. _ At the moment, that was irrelevant— more useful to estimate how much was missing versus Jason’s height and weight. There was an alarming eleven or twelve drinks’ worth unaccounted for— enough for someone of even Jason’s size to court alcohol poisoning.

While on a water tower.  _ Five stories up. _

Jason followed his increasingly tense expression to the bottle, tilting it to better his own view. “Eh. I splilled— splill— still—  _ goddammit... I  _ **_spilled_ ** some.”

This wasn’t the place to start a fight. “Jason,” Bruce said levelly, “How much have you had.”

Jason sniffed as he thought it over, and indicated about a quarter inch of the bottle with his fingers. “Whatever you guessed, minus… this much.”

Bruce bit back his sigh of frustration. He had no hard data on Jason’s tolerance, but that was a  _ substantial  _ amount. “Jay, I need you to be honest with me. How  _ drunk  _ are you.”

The reply was punctuated with a sharp laugh.  _ “Wasted.” _

At least it was honest. “Alright. I’m going to get you down, then,  _ when I’m sure you don’t need a hospital,  _ we’re going back to the farm.”

He blinked slowly up at the stars and sighed heavily. “...Aight.”

Just as Bruce was beginning to formulate a plan and praying the pliability lasted, Jason rocked into a sitting position and pulled the cork with a hollow  _ pop _ , blocking Bruce’s reaching hand and taking a gulp. He winced and shoved it back in. “One for th’road,” he rasped.

“Jason,” Bruce warned hoarsely, in knots over his son’s unsteady sway.

He rolled his eyes and tossed the bottle underhanded into the darkness. There was the slap of leaves and branches as foliage broke its fall, but they didn’t hear it shatter or even hit the ground.

Jason slumped. “Damn. That was unsatisfying.”

He started to get to his feet, but a vivid mental image of him staggering right off the edge after the whiskey had Bruce yanking him down.  _ “Stay put,”  _ he hissed, too preoccupied with devising an extraction strategy to be gentle. Jason couldn’t be trusted to use the ladder under his own power any time soon, and Bruce didn’t relish the thought of carrying him down.

The grapple gun was better than nothing, but it was designed for high-speed  _ ascension,  _ not  _ descension—  _ to extend to a solid point and forcefully retract upon meeting resistance at both ends. If there were another high point nearby, it would be feasible to slow their fall with a long arc and touch down at the bottom. Very tricky, with a two-hundred and forty pound drunk on his shoulder, but possible. As it was, this was by far the tallest structure for miles. The only way to go was down.

Unless he wanted to pull them into the ground like a nail under a hammer, the grapple was unhelpful in its present state. He reached into the belt and began disassembly. A line was a line, and the winding mechanism would be useful as a pulley to mitigate the load.

Jason, who had scowled petulantly at the order, aborted a saucy retort and narrowed his eyes. There was a long pause before he spoke. “...Why’re you dressed as a… a  _ carpenter?”  _

Bruce glanced down at himself.

This wasn’t his usual  _ uniform  _ utility belt. He’d gotten it from a hardware store for situations such as these. It was suede leather with more open pockets than he’d normally like, but that mattered less as a civilian— he wouldn’t be doing any swinging through the air or brawling in it (probably). He’d stashed some of his most oft-used supplies and gadgets in it as well as some highly visible ordinary tools to dispel suspicion: a pair of gloves, pliers, screwdrivers, a hammer— without going through the contents, it appeared to be an ordinary tool belt with no relation to Batman whatsoever.

Although, it  _ was  _ yellow.

A bright flash blinded him. He glared through the spots in Jason’s direction while his night vision recovered. 

He was grinning at his phone. “Y’ll thank me later,” he slurred, then laid back down with a groan. He put a hand over his eyes. “M’ smarter ‘n this. Swear.”

Bruce set the resin housing aside. There were several mechanisms to take apart before he could get at the line, and he didn’t want to lose track of any of the specialized pieces. Although the possibility of a Smallville water employee somehow tracing the parts back to both Batman  _ and  _ Bruce Wayne was admittedly remote, stranger things had happened. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“Don’t even keep booze  _ around,  _ usually, ‘s just… You seen all the fuckin’ sinkholes n’ mines n’ shit ‘round here?”

He tucked a few tiny gears in a belt pocket. He  _ really  _ didn’t need Jason getting wound up on this lonely, tiny and seemingly shrinking roof. “Jay—”

“Goddammit, can you shut up n’ listen f’r once?” he growled, the opposite of soothed.

Bruce shut up and kept working.

“Creepy ass holes in the ground— I know  _ you _ like ’em, you got a creepy ass cave— they make me need a xanax, ‘cause you know why? ‘Cause I spent a fuckin’  _ eternity _ in one.”

Bruce chanced an oblique look. “You mean... the cemetery?”

“What? I was fuckin’  _ dead  _ for that, moron, I don’t remember the coffin.” 

The partially cannibalized grapple gun was heavy in his hands. “Where, then?”

_ “Underground.  _ How th’ fuck should I know.” He rolled over to pull up his knees and greenly tuck his face into the crook of his arm. “Forgot what the sky looked like,” he mumbled.

The story was dripping out like rust-red water from a broken pipe, but they needed off this tower even more than the line needed bled. Bruce kept one eye on Jason and one on the parts.

Both of Jason’s arms were bent over his face now, either stifling nausea or warding off the world. “... When I won. When I was  _ brutal _ , ‘n I  _ slaughtered,”  _ he said roughly, “they gave me ‘s much as I could drink. An’ I did. Barrels ‘n barrels. It was th’ only time they let me  _ forget the ring.” _

After several still moments Bruce realized his hands had stopped again in favor of staring at Jason and reopening a mental casefile on the days they’d lost. Location unknown. Involuntary holding. Possible underground prison. Death fights. Competition? Access to copious amounts of casked alcohol, presumably wine. 

The League of Shadows.

Before, he’d made assumptions when the answer was right in front of him— Jason hadn’t  _ joined  _ the League. In the car he said he hadn’t wanted to be there. At the time, Bruce was too distracted by the admittance he’d been there  _ at all  _ to fully parse that statement. Jason didn’t want to be there. Kidnapped. Forced to fight. Purpose, unknown.

Jason abruptly struggled up on an elbow and Bruce scrambled to stabilize him while he violently expelled the contents of his stomach. 

Bruce pulled him away from the vomit slowly dripping down the slanted roof. He was limp and heavy as he let himself be resettled on his side, groaning faintly and shivering against the cold metal.

“Two minutes, Jaylad,” Bruce said, double timing his efforts. He shed his coat, first, and helped Jason into it— the thin workout shirt he was wearing wasn’t doing much to counter the night chill or the body heat wicked away by the alcohol. Hopefully it would help protect his skin from the wire-thin grapple line he’d hurriedly stuffed in the tool belt; he pulled it out and started knotting a harness around him.

Jason grunted when he snugged it tight.

“Jay? Are you with me?” This part would be difficult without help— in order to start lowering him to the ground, he had to cross the edge. Pushing him over would be unpleasant for both of them in more ways than one.

_ “Nnn.”  _

Bruce chose to take that as a  _ yes.  _ He looped through the closest rungs until the pulley was set up to his satisfaction, donning the gloves and testing his own weight against it several times before touching Jason’s shoulder. “I’m going to help you down now. Back  _ slowly  _ to the ladder.”

Jason nodded without opening his eyes and struggled to his knees and elbows, pausing once to press his mouth against his arm until another wave of nausea passed.

“Good. Nice and easy.”

He scooted backwards. “Drop me, ‘n I’ll f’n  _ kill you,”  _ he mumbled.

“I won’t drop you, Jay.” He tugged the line as he fed it out to demonstrate the harness holding him back.

Jason peered over the edge and squeezed his eyes shut.  _ “Shit.” _

“If anything happens, I’ve got you,” Bruce reassured, tugging the line again as much to convince himself as Jason. He’d flown through the night for years with little birds by his side. But there was always  _ something  _ to grab onto, a forest of ledges to perch safely on— right now there was nothing but open air and stubby trees below. Their wings were as good as clipped here.

Jason started down out of sight. He paused every few rungs, either unwilling or incapable of hurry. About halfway down, or so Bruce estimated, he stopped.

“Jay?” The sound of retching drifted up and he winced, taking more of the weight. Another couple minutes passed.

Eventually a little slack came into the line and he was getting ready to let it feed through again when it jerked tight, hissing through his gloves until he could wrest control back from gravity, bracing with both feet against the welded ladder.

He’d fallen.

Bruce squashed the instinctive rush of panic. Logically, if the load was this heavy Jason was still on the other end of it. “I’ve got you,” he called. “Hang on.”

He let the line slide through a couple feet at a time, feeling friction’s heat through the gloves. If he let too much go, the momentum would be difficult to reverse.

Without a visual on their progress, the rest of the descent was eternal. Bruce almost fell backwards when the line slacked, and he rushed to verify Jason had gotten down safely.

He was below, curled on his side again and face hidden, but extending a thumbs up.

Bruce took a deep, cleansing breath before collecting the equipment and starting down himself, hooking his feet around the sides of the ladder and sliding to the ground as quickly as he dared.

He knelt by Jason. “You okay?”

“Ugh.” He didn’t stir while he was untangled from the line. He did award an extremely deadpan expression when prompted to blow into a breathalyzer, an implicit  _ of course you carry one of those around  _ on his otherwise plastered face.

His BAC score was 0.22%.

Mollified— but just barely— Bruce half-dragged him to the car. They would leave the truck; tomorrow’s work would include its retrieval. For now, Bruce’s focus was on something more immediate.

Bruce started the car, but hesitated to put it in gear. The heat roaring from the vents didn’t affect the boy huddled miserably in his jacket. The tip of the scar peeked out of the collar, and what he’d said on the tower replayed in his mind.

_ Underground. _

“... Jay? Still with me?”

_ Slaughtered. _

Jason winced as the headlights reflected off the fence and replaced the hand over his eyes, sagging against the door. “Jus’  _ drive.” _

Past the four way stop and the bright lights of the gas station, miles of straight, flat road outran the headlights. Without streetlamps, buildings, or even visible foliage to mark their advancement, the inky blackness gave the illusion of spinning their wheels and going nowhere at all.

——

_ “Can I ask you something?” The boy was listless, but alive, and expected to make a rapid recovery. _

_ “Anything, Tim.” _

_ “... Have you ever felt like… the only people that want you around, are…  _ **_bad_ ** _ people. Like… like there’s something wrong with you, that makes good people _ **_leave.”_ **

Bruce couldn’t sleep.

He made an attempt to, folded into various angles in the easy chair, but he pulsed with red hot anguish that refused to quench.

Jason had made it as far as the living room couch, so that’s where Bruce deposited him for the night. He tucked a bath towel under his head and left a large mixing bowl within easy reach. Dishes and laundry, he could manage. Upholstery and carpet cleaning… that would take a professional.

And he’d like to keep Alfred out of this if at all possible.

_ “Sometimes.” All the time. “But there’s nothing wrong with you, Tim.” _

Bruce got up to pace the house at midnight. He sought distraction but was unable to focus on reading or working. Instead he set out a sports drink and bottled water for Jason, as he’d been far too sick for any fluids upon their return. He would be feeling the dehydration soon. He added another blanket, too; maybe he’d stop trying to ball up under the one he already had.

_ “May I ask  _ **_you_ ** _ one?” The one that was burning him from the inside out, fueled by hours of guilt-ridden waiting. _

_ “...Okay.” _

_ “Did you take those pills to hurt yourself? Because you thought I…?” _

It was significantly less exercise than pacing the Manor. At three, he woke Jason just enough to ensure he  _ could  _ wake up, should he vomit again, and took his blistering nerves outside for a run.

_ “No! No, Bruce, I… I just wanted to take care of myself. I didn’t want to bother anyone.” _

_ “You should have asked for help.” Not that  _ **_he’d_ ** _ made himself available. _

_ “I know. I’m sorry.” _

_ An apology? Maddening. “Why do you think you’re here, Tim?” _

A punishing workout burned off a little of the inward energy. Jason was still sprawled on the couch at four, and the sports drink was empty. Bruce showered upstairs.

_ “You need me.” Instant, but joyless. _

_ A martyr complex at fourteen. He’d provoked this; his responsibility now was to correct it. “Listen to me carefully.” If he had to be evil, let him be a lesser one.  _ **_“I do not need you._ ** _ If you are here, it is because you are  _ **_wanted_ ** _ here. It’s  _ **_you_ ** _ that needs someone, and that’s exactly how it should be.” Someone, yes. But it was Bruce’s cardinal selfishness to insist it be  _ **_him._ **

At five, he stopped in the upstairs hallway to study the Kent family photos. Some he remembered, like Martha’s favorite— the one with the huge pumpkin. There were many new ones— Lois and Jon, Kara and Connor, adult Clark… he did a double-take at one of those. Clark was sitting at the kitchen table with his back turned to the camera, gesturing for conversational emphasis. The focus of the photo was actually on his listener— Bruce.

He stooped for a closer look. In the photo, he was mid-eyeroll at whatever Clark was saying, his head bowed, touching a cup of coffee to his lips. He looks tired. It could be the Thanksgiving between Dick leaving and Jason arriving, but he suspects it’s the one after Jason’s absence.

He skimmed the photos more carefully. To his surprise, he was in several: lurking in the background at that anniversary party Clark had suckered him into; squinting at a fistful of wiring the weekend he installed a security system in the farmhouse; somberly picking up a teary toddler-size Jon; comically oblivious as Lois is stalking away in exasperation; looking alarmed as Ma Kent pulls him by the collar and presses a kiss to his cheek. They are all candid, secret shots. There’s one more, probably the oldest— Martha and young Dick are laughing together in the foreground; behind them, Bruce is watching fondly, with pride and a soft smile on his face. 

Something wrenched in him, because he remembered that one. He remembered how good it felt to watch Dick getting to have something he never got to, as if he was accomplishing just what Martha had inspired in him. He looks so  _ young,  _ and he marveled at how that man who already felt a thousand years old has only gotten older.

Martha said Jason was as arrested by these as Bruce. He wondered which ones had transfixed him. Maybe, like Bruce, it was all of them— a road he hadn’t even realized he’d missed taking.

With the photos suddenly hard to look at, he drifted downstairs. At this hour he could occupy himself with making breakfast— not that he could match Jason or Alfred, but surely he could figure something out.

A gravelly “Bruce?” diverted him to the living room, where Jason was shuffling his direction with mussed hair and scrunched eyes.

“Morning…. How do you feel?” Bruce asked quietly.

Jason grunted and came right up to him to sag heavily against Bruce’s right shoulder with his own right, his cheek drooping onto him like he’d been walking past when they clipped together. He was slack and sleep-warm (and reeked of sour whiskey). It was reminiscent of a much younger Jason, one that still felt shielded by Bruce and thought he could do  _ anything,  _ that thought Bruce was a safe place to be _. _

The acid... receded, somewhat.

That Jason had been  _ much  _ lighter, too. Bruce adjusted his stance to take the weight.

His scratchy voice was muffled by Bruce’s shirt. “The  _ hell _ happened last night.”

“Hn. You climbed the water tower to imbibe.”

“Oh. Yeah,” he grumbled, and heaved a crestfallen sigh. “Christ. I  _ suck.” _

Troubled, Bruce rested his jaw against Jason’s hair and squeezed the back of his neck consolingly. They would talk.

But Alfred would have his head if he didn’t keep his dawn priorities straight.

“I’m no good at omelettes,” Bruce said, savoring the trusting weight on his shoulder but hating that Jason’s agony put it there. “Toast?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruce is so in his head rn. But he gets better.


	4. Controlled Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and Jason have a chat. Like many of their chats, it ends in an ER visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have embraced the crazy evil cult side of the Al Ghuls. Somebody had to.

Jason emerged from his shower more awake, albeit clutching a bottle of ibuprofen and stringing muttered curses together all the way to the kitchen table. The bottle rattled as he struggled to open it with his eyes clenched shut, probably against a pulsing headache.

Bruce took it from him gently and watched as Jason’s bleary expression went from gratitude to malice when he pocketed the bottle instead of taking the lid off. “Eat something first.”

Jason rested his forehead on the table. “Go fuck yourself,” he grumbled.

Bruce canvassed for a loaf of bread. “You’ve never had a stomach ulcer, have you.” He found the bread. Now if he could find the toaster…

“... I’ll give you a  _ stomach ulcer.” _

_ “Hn. _ Too late.” The toaster was on top of the refrigerator. He pulled it down and plugged it in. “What do you want on your toast?”

A heavy sigh. “Don’t care.”

Bruce brought all of the Kents’ spread collection to the table with the toast and picked up the peanut butter.

Jason wordlessly reached for the strawberry jam.

That was always his favorite.

They ate in silence until Jason had dutifully eaten two pieces and drank the tea, when he held out his hand expectantly.

Bruce shook out a couple tablets and handed them over, settling in with coffee and pretending to read email while Jason buried his head in his arms and kept as still as possible. They let the unsaid words percolate.

Meanwhile, Bruce planned his angle of attack.

Direct questioning would lead to stonewalling. Indirect questioning would be rejected as blatant manipulation. Commentary on the reckless behavior would be interpreted as criticism. Silence would elicit absolutely nothing right now, but probably come back to bite him later.

He thumbed the rim of his mug, estimating the likelihood of unobtrusively acquiring a suggestion from Dick without Jason noticing. Dick may not know the correct response, but it was bound to deal less damage than whatever Bruce settled on.

But Jason would probably figure it out. He knew what Bruce sounded like.

_ “Spit it out,”  _ Jason mumbled. His face was still buried in his arms. “You’re brooding loud as _ hell.” _

Bruce put the mug down and laced his fingers. “We should... talk.”

Jason raised his head. “Oh,  _ that _ always goes well,” he said dryly.

Bruce pursed his lips. “You don’t _ have _ to tell me about what happened yesterday,” he said carefully, ready to be cut off with each syllable. “But… I’m here. I will listen, if you do.”

Jason didn’t visibly react, which was at least better than outright hostility. Bruce tried not to stare at him staring vacantly into the woodgrain of the table.

“Last night was stupid,” he muttered eventually. “Even by my standards.” He didn’t raise his eyes, but his shoulders tensed— waiting for Bruce to concur.

“I’m not going to lecture you,” Bruce said quietly.

Jason huffed skeptically. “Yeah?”

He studied his hands, criss-crossed with scars. “You were… something upset you, before you left.”

The chair creaked as Jason leaned back. He crossed his arms and looked out the window, mutely scrubbing his temple with a knuckle.

Bruce was struck by how much like  _ him  _ he looked, as distant and grim as the candid photos in the hall. Was it cross-contamination? Or the standard result of the kind of life Bruce had sucked him into?

_ You are just like your daddy. _

Jason was quiet for a long time. Something simmered just under the surface, drawing him tight with something he didn’t want to say.

Or something Bruce didn’t want to hear. 

“Whatever it is, Jay,” he said, “I don’t have to like it. You can tell me.”

Jason snorted. “You won't like it. You’ll fucking _hate it.”_

Bruce shrugged, doing his best to look nonchalant. “That never stopped you before.”

His expression winced into something Bruce couldn’t read. At long last, he glanced furtively at Bruce.

“It’s not like I’ve never seen a nose ring before,” he said slowly. “Every other person in Park Row has one. I, uh. I just didn’t know  _ mine _ was for literal  _ farm animals.” _

Bruce blinked. “...Yours?”

He touched his septum absently. _ “Non- _ sadists just pierce the skin, you know? This went through the cartilage, so pulling the ring was like…” He paused, somewhere far away. “Like getting socked in the nose, backwards. While taking pliers to your front teeth.”

Bruce tried not to show the horror blooming in his chest. “Someone  _ did  _ this to you?”

Jason shrugged matter-of-factly. “I started refusing to leave the cell for ‘training,’ so. It was a lot faster to lead me around like a goddamn  _ cow  _ than beat the crap out of me every time.” He huffed hoarsely, a shadow of a laugh. “Hurt like a  _ bitch _ going in.”

_ Cell. Training.  _ The place where Jason had been held prisoner.  _ Underground.  _ Bruce closed his eyes, swallowing down a choked knot of anger and regret to join the fire in his chest.  _ “Who _ .”

“Who do you think? _ The League of Shadows.”  _ Jason rubbed his face wearily. “I was Talia’s pet project, sort of.”

The mug shook in his grip. Talia. It wasn’t  _ enough _ for Talia to take from him directly— she had to go after his son,  _ use  _ him, turn him into an  _ animal  _ to get at Bruce. 

Jason leaned forward restlessly, words leaving in a rush. “She told me she found me at Gotham Memorial Hospital, and you wouldn’t claim me. I wasn’t right in the head, from…you know. Brain injury. Talia said you didn’t want  _ damaged goods _ .”

Outrage tied his tongue. “If I’d known— Jay, I would  _ always…  _ Even if—”

Jason swallowed, his nod contrasting with the ill cant to his mouth. So he’d believed her lies. Maybe he still believed them— that his father had passed him over as imperfect and what,  _ gifted him to a sociopath? _

Bruce wanted to  _ break something. _

Preferably Talia’s legs.

“If I had known you were  _ alive,” _ Bruce said hotly, “I would have  _ torn the world apart  _ to find you. No matter what.”

Jason's mouth tightened, but didn’t meet his eyes. “I apparently lived on the streets in Gotham for a year before I wound up at the hospital,” he said quietly. “Guess my survival smarts stayed intact.”

Jason had been alive.

In Gotham.

On  _ Batman’s _ streets.

_ Alone.  _

Bruce’s throat felt the size of a straw. “I didn’t know,” he said hoarsely. He  _ should  _ have known. How could he have missed  _ his son  _ roaming  _ his city?  _ The League wasn’t even based on the same  _ continent  _ as Bruce, and they’d plucked Jason out from under his nose without him noticing a damn thing. 

Jason cleared his throat, ignoring Bruce’s turmoil. “Anyway. The nose ring.” He started toying with the paper towel he’d smudged jam on, tearing it into little pieces. “The cell didn’t even have a fucking  _ door.  _ They just put a chain through the ring. Whenever it was time to go, they just reeled my ass up against the wall, and a couple dickheads would come hook poles through the ring like goddamn  _ dogcatchers _ and haul me to the arena.”

Speechless, Bruce could only let Jason continue.

The boy leaned his elbows on the table, tangling fingers in his hair and breathing methodically. “‘Training’ was me killing whatever or whoever they threw in the arena. Chickens and goats, first. Then…” He took a hard breath through his nose.

Guessing didn’t take much imagination. “...People?”

Jason sucked his teeth. “Some decrepit old guy. A murderer, they said. Could barely even fight back, was begging, practically pissing himself. I couldn’t do it. Told them I wouldn’t.”

The cold dread stifled Bruce’s pride.

“They came after me with fucking hot pokers and shit, and… well. That’s a pretty fucked way to go, but I thought they’d kill me and be done with it.” He laughed bitterly. “Nope. Woke up chained to the wall, perfectly healed and freshly  _ batshit crazy,  _ and next time… they put me back in the arena with the same old man. Still begging. Still scared shitless.” He opened his mouth, but no words followed.

“You killed him.”

Jason nodded, eyes shut tight as if blocking out the memory. “They gave me a sword. It took me three swipes to take his head off— piece of shit was dull as a butterknife.”

Talia had not even  _ conceived  _ of the fury Bruce was going to visit upon her.

“After that… they brought the ones that could fight, and killing just got easier and easier. Assassins showed up to watch The Daily Deathmatch. They seemed to have a great time, too, drinking and taking bets on whether I’d win or get so wrecked I’d have to go to the Pit, and, uh,” he trailed off, risking a look at Bruce. “That’s the story of how I became a ruthless murderer in a nutshell.”

Bruce controlled his rage. He’d had a lot of practice. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Jason scoffed, disgusted. “You saw all the scars. When she let me out to go raze Gotham, I hadn’t been dipped in _ months. _ I knew what I was doing. I didn’t care.”

“Jason—”

Jason slapped the table.  _ “I. Fucking. Knew.” _

“... You were  _ tortured.”  _

_ “Trained. _ How does the gladiator’s oath go again? ‘He vows to endure being burned, bound, beaten, and  _ killed?’  _ I sure as shit  _ vowed,  _ ‘cause  _ dying sucks  _ and I killed for every minute I didn’t have to _ be _ killed. _ ” _

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “Gladiators were  _ slaves, _ Jay.  _ You  _ were a slave.”

“Dammit,  _ listen _ — There was always a gong before they came for me, because the League is pretentious as shit. So I started to just go to the wall when I heard it, because I was a fucking wuss and getting yanked around by chain in your face sucks.” His outburst cooled a little. “After a while, I’d go to the wall and the chain wouldn’t reel in. I had like ten feet of slack, I could have dodged the poles, but I didn’t, I just stood there and _ let them _ catch me. Before long, I’d stand by the wall, and the chain would  _ unclip, _ and I was  _ free,  _ Bruce,” he snarled. “I could have tried to escape or at least given those pricks a bad time, but I  _ didn’t.  _ I just let them take me. It didn’t even cross my mind. They stopped bringing the poles. Hell, by the time I left, I was taking  _ myself  _ to matches. I heard the gong, I went to the arena. And sometimes I killed so fast my bed was still warm when I got back.” He swallowed roughly, eyes to the floor. “Then I drank my winnings, pretended to be anywhere else, and passed out until it was time to do it all over again.”

Jason  _ had  _ been trained. Just like a dog. “How long,” Bruce managed.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “A year or so.”

A year.

_ A year. _

It was too much to take sitting down. Bruce paced the kitchen a few times before resting against the counter with the bridge of his nose pinched between his fingers, trying to breathe evenly.

They—  _ Talia _ — had stripped Jason of his humanity. Turned him into a cold blooded killer. Inverted everything he’d ever been taught about mercy. Performed a  _ systematic rape _ of his soul.

_ To spite Bruce. _

He’d thought the batarang to the neck was his ultimate evil— he was wrong. It wasn’t even close. 

Bruce couldn’t look at Jason, the man with the eyes of the boy— the boy whose first instincts had rightfully pegged Bruce as dangerous. The boy who he’d convinced to ignore those instincts. The boy he’d coerced into doing his bidding. He hadn’t meant to.

But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

“I never should have taken you in,” he said, hardly above a whisper. 

A long pause ended in disbelief. “...The fuck did you just say?”

“You’d have had a better life if I hadn’t interfered.”

Jason tensed when Bruce looked up. “I know they call me  _ zombie boy  _ but I fucking  _ am _ currently alive, thank you. And if you hadn’t  _ gotten involved,  _ I’d be in jail or dead for good by now.”

Bruce raked a hand through his hair. “If  _ you  _ weren’t involved with  _ me,”  _ he repeated. “I could have found someone else, someone  _ saner,  _ to take you. You wouldn’t have had to…”  _ Get beaten to a pulp. Die. Come back. Get beaten to a pulp. Die. Come back. Get your throat cut.  _ **_Almost_ ** _ die— _

Jason was equally as frustrated. “You think I couldn’t have left you anytime I wanted?”

“You were  _ a child.  _ You weren’t equipped to make that decision. I  _ was— _ and look where I led you.”

“What, you think I _ still _ don’t know what’s best for myself?”

He observed the bloodshot eyes and the sports drink clutched in Jason’s hand, blatantly hungover. “No.”

Jason’s eyes widened in outrage, but Bruce spoke over him. 

“ _No,”_ he repeated. “And that’s _my_ failure. _Not yours.”_ He took a calming breath. “I’ve colored your life with something insane and wretched that _doesn’t have a happy ending,_ and I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I stole that chance from you, however slim it may have been. The _worst_ alternatives had to have been less… they had to have been less horrible than what I’ve put you through. What you’re bound for.”

_ “Bound for?  _ You don’t control my life—”

He waved a hand to the walls around them.  _ “Don’t I?  _ You came here, you take my orders, you— you take my nightmares onto  _ yourself  _ after everything I’ve done… it’s Stockholm Syndrome, Jason. I’m no better than Talia, just less  _ blatant. _ Why else would you want anything to do with me?”

Jason stared at him in openmouthed shock. “You  _ arrogant prick,”  _ he growled, then he straightened with a mocking jerk of his chin. “Alright, since everything is about  _ you, fine. _ You  _ ruined my life.  _ Now what, genius? What are you going to do about it? Do you have a  _ time machine,  _ ‘cause _ I  _ sure as hell don’t.”

That was a good question. One Bruce couldn’t answer.

Yet.

Jason seethed at whatever he saw in Bruce’s expression. “You think I’m better off without you, huh? Well here’s the  _ straight shit,  _ old man: It’s not _ about  _ me.  _ You  _ think  _ you’re  _ better off without  _ me  _ reminding you of  _ your  _ screw ups.”

That wasn’t true.

Was it?

“To you I’m just the ghost of fuck-ups past.” Jason shoved away from the table, his voice dripping with scorn. “Well, it’s just like you told me, old man,” he sneered,  _ “don’t let me hurt you.” _

Bruce stared after him as the door slammed, an instant replay of everything he’d just said scrubbing through his brain.

Did he just answer his son’s horrifying confession of torture with  _ I never should have taken you in? _

_ “Fuck,”  _ he breathed, sprinting for the front door. The vehicles were on that side of the house, and he should be able to cut Jason off there, maybe fix this—

He leapt off the porch and skidded in the dirt, yanking keys out of the truck and looking round for Jason, ready to tackle him  _ bodily  _ if it came to that.

No Jason appeared. He visually checked both corners, the roof— “Jason?”

Maybe he wasn’t trying to leave the farm after all. Stewing in the barn, maybe, or taking a walk in the fields. That was better.

He cautiously drifted around the side of the house. All was quiet— an ambush? There should be the sound of destruction somewhere, anger burning out via pulverization…

Movement caught his peripheral vision. He lost it, at first, before it drew his eye again.

Distance made shapes more difficult to define, or he would have recognized the scene with much more immediate alarm.

The hazed shapes across the field included a large black one— Beauford the bull— and a tall one— Jason.

In the bullpen. 

With a pair of bolt cutters.

Occasionally, despite his every effort to limit his Robins’ exposure to truly dangerous encounters, he spotted them both in real peril and out of his reach. They were, in that moment, on their own. Either they would spread their wings and fly or they would plummet like a rock until Batman could regain control of the situation. Usually, it was the former. Never were they more poignantly his pride and joy than when blooming into their own, improvising in stride.

Sometimes... it was the latter.

He pounded across the yard and skidded to a halt just around the corner of the house, because Jason was standing cautiously in front of the vaguely curious bull, mouth of the cutters closing with aching delicacy around the nose ring.

The jaws snapped through and the bull twitched in surprise, bracing in total stillness like a caged spring as Jason leaned forward to make another cut.

Bruce wanted to run and shout, but he kept his movements quiet, fearful of setting off the tension.

_ “Jason,”  _ he hissed, but he was too far. And Jason was already committing to the next cut—

The jaws snapped and the bull came unglued.

Beauford threw his head, yanking the tool from Jason’s hands and hurling it in a spinning arc tens of feet away before heaving a roaring breath. His target staggered backwards, and the bull heaved forward, horns down.

Jason vaulted over the bull’s back and hit the ground running, but it was much faster than its size would indicate. They came barrelling toward the fence with the bull’s striking hooves just inches from Jason’s heels.

Bruce was already sprinting, leaping the board fence and making eye contact with Jason, who abruptly made a right turn— the pursuing animal followed, leaving its side open to Bruce’s approach.

_ “Shit!” _

Bruce pushed for more speed as Jason went down, rolling frantically away from the hot breath and trampling feet but the bull was over him now, stomping around his balled up body and shoving with its head. The nose ring, a circle with a missing arc, was still dangling from its nostrils.

Bruce sent a flying kick into its haunches, spinning it away from Jason, who was staggering to his feet. While Beauford was scrambling for his footing, Bruce ducked under Jason’s arm and half dragged him toward and through the fence.

Beauford took advantage of the seconds he’d lost to helping Jason.

Not to be outdone, the bull came skidding into Bruce, the top board snapping under the sudden impact and leaving him draped through the middle of the fence.

Jason hauled him through before the bull could get reoriented, and they fell in a heap into the grass.

Beauford pawed indignantly, snorting and tossing his head at his opponents’ escape. He eyed the broken board uncertainty, undecided as to whether he could pursue.

Another whip of his head flung the nose ring into the side of the barn with a  _ thwack _ like a gunshot.

The shock of the noise sent Beauford running and bucking to the other side of the pasture.

“ _ Hnng—  _ You’re  _ welcome _ , asshole,” Jason panted, then let his head fall back.

Bruce was too winded from being bodyslammed into the fence to speak, but he propped himself up to check on Jason. No obvious damage, besides the limp, but the smears of dirt could be evidence of trampling, crushed bone, internal bleeding—

Jason pushed his probing hand away. “I’m fine, quit it,” he snapped. “Just twisted my ankle in that fucking gopher hole.”

Bruce laid back to catch his breath. Nothing felt broken, but without body armor he’d taken every bit of the impact directly— it would bruise, to say the least.

He took his breathlessness as an opportunity to mentally gather points to cover in his  _ What the Hell Were You Thinking  _ speech. He could begin with a basic  _ I told you not to go in there,  _ followed by  _ you can’t follow an order to save your life,  _ which he was immediately struck with guilt for thinking even in the privacy of his mind. That brought him to  _ how dare you put yourself at risk for something so stupid,  _ which evoked vivid images of a trampled, torn body, like the one he’d dug out of rubble and told shameless, self-serving lies about and wept bitter, self-loathing tears over while scrubbing his child’s blood from beneath his nails—

Jason’s sharp  _ snap  _ redirected his attention to the scowling face above his. “Hey. You gonna live?”

He grunted an affirmative and shoved into a sitting position.

“Good,” Jason hissed, jabbing a finger into Bruce’s chest, “because you need to fucking hear this: I  _ am  _ damaged goods to you,” he snarled. “I fucked up! I  _ am _ fucked up. I fucking  _ know. _ I know nothing will ever take the blood off my hands, but God forbid I want to be _ little _ less of a shitstain _. _ ”

Bruce’s lecture notes evaporated. “Wh— that’s not—”

“It is, and you  _ know  _ it is. All you see when you look at me is that kid  _ you _ fucked up. Maybe I want to be something else!” he bit out. “Fuck, Bruce, I just want you to look at me like it’s not _ killing you.  _ Look at me and see  _ me,  _ instead of staring up your own ass.”

Bruce blinked as Jason scrubbed his eyes roughly with the back of his hand.

“I came back, even got my head on halfway straight again, but it’s like  _ you  _ never did. Like _ I _ lost  _ you.”  _

“Jay,” Bruce said hoarsely, and stopped. What was there to say that wasn’t a lie?

“I need your help, Bruce,” Jason said, sounding nothing like a killer and everything like an agonized kid. “I need you to show me how you  _ live with this, _ because nobody knows more about  _ hating the fuck out of yourself  _ than you.” 

——

When Jason was young, only having been at the Manor two or three months, patrol went  _ very  _ awry for Batman.

A run-in with Mad Hatter left him fighting for his life against a dozen overpowered thugs. He managed to neutralize them, and none too gently.

Only to discover a mind-control device plastered to his cowl.

When he destroyed it, he realized that the thugs he’d beaten senseless weren’t thugs. They weren’t even  _ adults. _

They were kids.

Under mind control themselves, they’d gone up against Batman in a  _ hopelessly  _ one-sided fight.

He abandoned Hatter’s trail in favor of getting them medical attention, then lurked nearby in horror as they were treated for breaks, bruises, and bewilderment. There were tears and wailing, and he gnashed his teeth, utterly sickened and overwhelmed with the urge to leave Gotham, as if he could outrun his shame by abandoning the site of it.

But back at the Manor, Jason was waiting.

And he couldn’t cope with hurting another child.

When he found Jason camped out in front of the TV, safe and warm and secure from Batman’s fickle wrath _ ,  _ Bruce was overcome with a different feeling. The self-loathing in his bones transmuted with alchemic mystique into an excruciatingly tender desire to safeguard this child,  _ his  _ child, and bring him up knowing he had at least one safe place in the world no matter what, and that was with  _ Bruce. _

That was the chaste vow written on his heart when he tugged Jason close, a promise echoed in every beat.

Jason, however, flinched as hard as Bruce did when he felt a frantic pat on his arm, a demand for escape he’d taught the boy just hours before. He let go and created an instant bubble of space between them.

Of course. Bruce might want to play to his own comfort, but Jason’s was foremost. If that meant living with the edge of rancor in his marrow, he was willing to bear it. He apologized for intruding.

He could love Jason without reciprocation. Just look at him and Dick.

“You okay, boss?”

Bruce hadn’t realized Jason was paying attention. He’d assumed he was still in full recoil. “I’m fine, Jay.”

“Nah. Try again.”

Affection warmed him. Jason was a smartass, but one with a good heart. He relaxed. “...Long night.”

There was a prolonged pause. “Was it kids?”

Bruce turned his head to study Jason. He was earnestly waiting for an answer, one eyebrow raised slightly and a wince to his cheeks.

A very  _ perceptive  _ smartass.

Not that Bruce wanted his atrocity haunting the boy’s dreams. “Something like that.”

They stayed for a while, something inane on the screen and trouble on Bruce’s mind. It was a quandry— how best to not only keep Jason safe from him, but make him  _ feel  _ safe? What truth would Jason, someone words were less than worthless to, accept?

The answer arrived in the hesitant lean of a small knee against his.

Deduction was Bruce’s craft. Over the coming weeks he hazarded conjecture on what Jason needed— or wanted— from him as far as physical kindness, and Jason replied in perfect tandem, a tap out with varying degrees of cheekiness.

Jason removed the guesswork, made Bruce secure in the knowledge that he couldn’t hurt Jason by mistake. Any misstep would be corrected before it did any harm, and along the way Bruce started to remember what it felt like to see through vulnerable eyes— what it took to soothe the worry of living in a world wobbling on its axis.

Jason was doing his own research. Whatever conclusions he drew brought him closer and closer, until Bruce was allowed the indulgence of shielding his clever boy within his arms, held close in the elemental contentment of knowing his own heart stood between his child and the world.

And then, Jason’s death burned it all to ashes.

Or so he thought. 

Watching this young man with his boy’s eyes, bitterly tearing up in frustration with life and with Bruce, it flooded back to him.

The man  _ was  _ the boy. And Bruce had loved the boy more than life itself.

He opened his mouth, though unsure what words this intense revelation was spawning.

Jason held up a hand, closing his eyes tight and freezing Bruce in his tracks. “Stop.” He started pushing to his feet. “Just… wait a second.”

Bruce watched, stunned, as he limped along the side of the barn, scanning the ground until he bent to pick something up and dust it off. He returned, muttering “this went a lot smoother in my head” when Jason held out his hand. “Here. Before you stick your foot in your mouth again.”

A heavy C-shaped piece of metal dropped into Bruce’s palm— the bull’s nose ring.

“I know you’re a sucker for mementos,” Jason said. “This one’s not the Robin memorial. It’s not so you can brood over what you  _ did _ or  _ didn’t _ do to single handedly kill me, ruin my life, whatever the hell it is you think.” He licked his lips and eyed him soberly.  _ “This  _ one's a reminder that  _ nobody’s  _ got a ring through my nose now. Not  _ you, _ not Talia. No one. So… If I’m  _ here…  _ it’s because I  _ want  _ to be here. You're not my  _ owner. _ You’re my _ dad, _ the only one that was ever worth a damn to me, _ ”  _ Jason said, a painful ultimatum forming in the clench of his jaw. “But if you don’t feel the same... I might as well fuck off right now.”

Jason waited, wary and brittle with the weight of his doubt and the two futures hanging on this moment.

The freshly cut edges of the metal bit into Bruce’s clenched hand, and the clouds finally parted.

There was no salvaging last year’s harvest. Only tending to the next one.

A sunbeam dousing tender seedlings on their first push out of last year’s dead thatch; irrigation pipelines nurturing them safely through drought; soil amendment to see them to their most verdant potential— the measure of a grower’s love was through their hands, their sore back, their early mornings. It was  _ effort. _ Not the fear of a subpar result. Not the grief of last season’s shortcomings.

A grower’s joy was in the growing, and new things were sprouting all the time.

“Of course I want you,” Bruce said, hushed with solemn awe at Jason’s open vulnerability— letting his guard down had always been his anathema. Bruce wasn’t worthy of it, and it was all the more precious for being undeserved. “You’re my son. I… I’ll do my best at whatever it takes to be a better father to you.”

Jason’s glistening eyes softened with relief as he nodded, as if Bruce could have ever chosen the alternative. It came into perspective just how afflicted he’d been with that question, truly uncertain how Bruce would respond. “That’s all I ask.”

The sag of his frame, combative just seconds ago, and the self-conscious turn of his head to hide the tears was a white hot pang to Bruce’s heart, and for the first time in a long, long time, he wasn’t tormented by the ways he could accidentally destroy what he loved most.

“Come here,” he rasped, and pulled Jason to his breast. He breathed deep, alight; the hellish fire bursting into the purity of solar warmth. The promise still throbbed under his breastbone, charred black but shedding scale by the second.

He wove his fingers into the wavy mop of hair and pressed his son’s desperate cling into his shoulder, aching with relief and determination. Jason shifted, burrowing against him with a jerking breath and small, exposed whine. A wet drop fell into his shirt collar.

The pale scar brushed Bruce’s fingers.

A dark, grieved bite quickly succumbed to fierce resolve. He’d vowed to protect his children—  _ this  _ child— body, mind and soul. He’d fallen short, let the fields go fallow.

Starting now, he chose to grow.

——

In the end, they both got x-rays.

Bruce insisted on taking Jason to the clinic to make sure the ankle hadn’t re-broken, and Jason refused to cooperate unless Bruce got a chest x-ray for his ‘bull sandwich.’ Bruce agreed on the condition that Jason make omelettes again for dinner (“Sure, make the  _ cripple _ slave over a hot stove.”) Jason, in turn, agreed as long as they spent their wasted afternoon watching  _ Smokey and the Bandit _ .

Bruce considered, then played his ace: agreed, if Jason would  _ legally  _ reenter the land of the living, officially reassuming his place in the family as Bruce’s adopted son.

Dumbstruck, Jason proposed no further terms.

They shook on it.

Neither of them were found to have sustained serious injuries, though Jason was sent home with a brace and Bruce was prescribed rest, ice, and a strong drink, because “most people who tangle with a bull don’t get to just walk away.”

Their mood was, indeed, elevated by post-survival relief.

On the ride home, Jason was contemplative. “We’ve gotta get our story straight, B.”

Honestly, Bruce hadn’t given much thought to  _ how  _ to bring Jason back from the dead, just that he would figure out a way. They could claim the ‘accident’ was a sham, that Jason had been entered into the witness protection program for the intervening years. That would involve paying off a number of people who had personally verified the boy’s state of being dead, however, and that was risky. Alternatively, he could assume a new identity as an entirely new addition to the family. The narrative possibilities in that case were almost endless.

He knitted his fingers atop the steering wheel, the bull ring a comforting weight where he’d hooked it around his wrist. “It  _ is  _ your story. You should have a say in it.”

Jason shrugged. “No need to make it complicated, I guess. How about let’s just say we  _ found it.”  _

Just when Bruce was getting his footing with Jason, he lost it again. “... Found what?”

Jason waved at the ring. “I’m sure as hell not telling Clark his  _ little dogie  _ got flying kicked into the next dimension by Batman— he kissed the damn thing  _ on the mouth  _ before they left town. I don’t think he’d appreciate our little playdate.”

Ah. Keeping secrets from an investigative reporter with super hearing and x-ray vision could be a problem. It would be hard to explain why Bruce was carrying Beauford’s old jewelry around.

Then again, sometimes things with Clark  _ were  _ that easy. “Alright.  _ You  _ found it, and you gave it to me.”

“...That’s all you got?”

“He won’t question sentimental value.”

“Maybe not, but  _ you  _ having sentiment, he might question that,” Jason remarked, his teasing edge a little exaggerated for Bruce’s benefit. 

“Hn. Not a story. The truth,” Bruce said plainly. “Our talks aside… adoption is no small thing.”

Jason went a little pink, directing his attention to the open fields. “Guess not everybody gets adopted twice,” he admitted.

“Have you thought about how you want to go about it?” At the questioning look, he elaborated. “As I said, it’s  _ your  _ story.”

Jason shifted, stretching out the bad ankle. “Not much. I don’t care what the paperwork says, I just… I want to stay ‘Jay.’” He seemed almost insecure. As if, after all this, he would be forced to actually  _ become  _ someone else. 

Bruce caught his eye. “We can arrange that.”

Jason nodded and studied the corn for a few seconds before he smirked. “So, what sort of things do _ rich young men _ do in Spain?”

“...Spain?” Bruce thought back to the last time  _ he’d  _ been there, and found the daytime a blur compared to his nighttime escapades. “The usual. Extravagant hotels, restaurants. Sailing. Why?”

Jason didn’t look up from thumbing around on his phone. “While you were with the doc, my  _ brothers  _ and I planned a little trip for next summer.”

Bruce raised his eyebrows. Dick and Tim were on better terms with Jason than he’d been up to this point, but the rapid acceptance was a bit surreal. And pleasing. “That’s… good. What part of Spain?”

“Bit of everything. Barcelona, Madrid, Ibiza… Pamplona…”

“Pamplona?...” An odd choice for a band of high society youths— there wasn’t much of a party scene there. Except in July, when—

_ “No,”  _ he growled, already searching his phone contacts via the car’s touchscreen.

Jason looked up innocently. “No, what?”

_ “None of you  _ are doing that.” The phone was ringing through the hands-free speakers.

_ “Mr. Wayne, what can I do for you? Are you coming back early?” _

“Hello Stephen,” he said. “No, no. Just a quick thing— I need you to freeze all the credit lines issued to my sons. It’s a little bit of family  _ drama, _ you know how it can be, and I’ll have to sort it out in person. Until then...”

_ “Completely understood, Mr. Wayne. Anything else?” _

“That’ll be all, Stephen. Thanks.” He punched END CALL. 

Jason rubbed his chin, frowning in mock thoughtfulness. “Good thing I’ve still got all those  _ illicit assets,  _ or we might have had to cancel!”

“You’re  _ not going.  _ None of you are, not if I can help it.”

“Are you telling me Alfred  _ lied  _ about the time  _ you—” _

_ “I  _ was _ stupid,”  _ he inturrupted. “And  _ Alfred _ wasn’t supposed to tell you about that.” He scrolled to Dick’s number and hit dial, only for Jason to hurriedly reach over and cancel the call before cracking up into helpless laughter. Bruce glared over at him, utterly unamused by what he considered a very serious conversation.

“Bruce,” Jason managed finally. _ “I’m screwing with you.  _ Although,” he said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, “Now I’m screwing with Dick and Tim, because the next time they go to buy a  _ hot dog  _ they’ll find out you cut them off, because...” he broke up cackling again. “...You actually think we’re going to go _ run with the bulls.” _

——

Bruce flinched awake.

An adrenaline haze was his first clue to work with, either from a dream or the situation he was in— he was too disoriented to tell which. 

He could feel a bitten off cry in his throat and something hard clutched in his hand before opening his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. No Batsuit, but Bruce Wayne wasn’t immune to danger and he couldn’t relax on that account alone.

There was noise— probably television. Burt Reynolds?

Reality reconnected one piece at a time. This was the Kent living room. He was stretched out on the couch, something— the bull ring, Jason’s memento— clutched in one hand. He’d fallen asleep, conquered by thirty-six hours of paternal stress and the matching insomnia. 

He honed in on the boy— the man, now— with the white forelock and the worn leather jacket blanketing his chest. Jason was sprawled at the other end with the footrest kicked out and Bruce’s legs in his lap, one hand behind his head and the other resting loosely on an ankle. He patted one of Bruce’s socked feet without taking his eyes off the screen.

“Go back to sleep, old man,” he said quietly. “You’re okay.”

Jason was safe. Warm. Whole.

Loved.

Bruce sighed and drifted off to peaceful dreams.

—— 

The corn harvest was completed the night before the Kents were due to return. Bruce and Jason’s respective bruises— and their time spent fixing the fence— slowed them down, but the job was nonetheless done to satisfaction.

On their final morning, Bruce found coffee steaming on the kitchen counter. Jason didn’t drink coffee— tea was his preferred poison— and the gesture made Bruce’s throat tight.

Today marked their return to Gotham.

A pinch of… disappointment, perhaps, at that thought. He was eager to have his city under personal supervision again, but anxious that his progress with Jason may evaporate at the county line.

At the moment that was unnecessary worry. He poured himself a cup of coffee and paused in front of the kitchen sink window, viewing the dew sparkling in the yard and sipping with content.

The back door opened and banged shut again. “Think I’ll find me a sweet black Trans Am for the nightlife, B,” Jason called, “but instead of the chicken I’ll put a red bat on the hood.” He walked in and Bruce stepped aside so he could use the sink to scrub his hands.

“Hn. I used to have one of those,” he mused.

Jason flicked the water from his hands and grabbed a towel, his eyes narrowing. “What? As the Bat or the Billionaire?”

“Neither. I was your age.”

The kitchen chair creaked when Jason dropped into it. “What the hell, old man? You’re holding out on me. Why is it not in the garage?”

Bruce huffed. “Because I wrapped it around a lampost in a dock race. That I  _ won, _ by the way.”

Jason laughed.  _ “Dock race?  _ Did Baby Bruce get a little  _ lost  _ on his way to the  _ mansion?”  _

“I wouldn’t say  _ lost.  _ Although I recall telling Alfred something along those lines.”

“Huh.  _ Bling Bling  _ indulged in illegal contests of speed way before Batman. Who knew?”

That infernal  _ name.  _ “You could have named me anything,” Bruce sighed. “Why  _ that?” _

Jason grinned. “How much did that sweater set you back, old man?”

Bruce looked down at it. “Uh.” He didn’t know. Alfred was custodian of his wardrobe and associated budget— he didn’t even pack his own suitcase for this trip. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Jason said, rolling his eyes. “It’s  _ four thousand dollars.  _ I Googled it while you were drooling through Smokey and the Bandit.”

He grunted. “It’s  _ llama _ or something.”

“Vicuna.”

“Hn.”

A lull filled with coffee and tea brought a nagging thought to mind. Bruce cleared his throat— the wrong words for this would be better than no words at all. “I need to ask you something.”

Jason hid his trepidation well, but not quickly enough. Understandably, after the last serious conversation they’d had at this table. “Shoot.”

Bruce took a steadying breath. “If it’s up to me, I will dismantle the League of Assassins with  _ extreme prejudice  _ for what they did to you.” Heat came into his voice just thinking about it. “But… I’ll respect your wishes. Is that what you want?”

Jason considered in silence for a long moment. “They deserve it,” he muttered. “But you’re not doing it without  _ me,  _ and I’m… not ready for that.”

Bruce nodded soberly and picked his coffee back up. “Then the offer stands until you are.”

Jason relaxed when Bruce didn’t push the issue. “... Thanks.”

Several hours later they greeted the Kents, including Lois and Jon, upon their arrival at the farm. Jonathan Senior was anxious to hear about the harvest and whether the machinery had given them any trouble, and Clark was full of amused asides regarding the trip. Lois quickly identified a scalding wit to rival her own in Jason, and Jon Junior was whining for food.

Martha Kent turned from Jason’s bashful hug to Bruce, her expression warm and questioning—  _ how did it go? _

Bruce thought about the answer to that. Rare was the plan gone astray that actually went  _ better  _ than expected.

Well. Worse  _ and  _ better.

She had slowed her approach slightly to observe the conflicting emotions crossing his face— or maybe to marvel at the  _ presence  _ of emotion there. If so, he stunned her further by offering a smile.

This time, he beat her to the embrace.

——

Upon their return to Gotham, Jason requested temporary possession of the bull ring.

Bruce had yet to part with it; usually he kept it in his pocket, but he found himself pulling it out absently to fidget with and then forcing it around a wrist, where he could see it, when a task demanded both hands. Batman would have to leave it in the care of Bruce Wayne, however.

“Don’t worry, I’ll give it back,” Jason reassured, then disappeared into the depths of the Cave.

Bemused, Bruce absorbed himself in catching up with the nightlife he’d missed while away— reading reports, viewing new and updated cases, checking inventory— and so the noises singing out from the workshop only distantly touched his awareness.

One of Tim’s reports suggested an unpredictable new hallucinogen was hitting the streets, origin unknown. Tonight he'd sweep the target area for more to work with— it would behoove him to pack a drug rescue kit or two in his belt. And a rebreather— it was being sold in pill form, but this wasn’t his first rodeo. What  _ can _ be made a weaponized gas,  _ will  _ be made a weaponized gas.

While amending the contents of his utility belt, mulling over the pros and cons of bringing backup along and the best candidate, Jason reappeared.

“Here ya go,” he announced smugly.

Bruce accepted the ring he’d become so familiar with over the last few days and was surprised by its transformation. 

“Jay,” he said wonderingly, turning it over in his hands. The sharp ends had been flattened and ground smooth, the original hinges delicately welded shut, the round shape pressed slightly into an oval. The whole thing was glowingly polished, and without _ knowing _ what it was, it looked like the kind of lavish, artisanally crafted and  _ expensive  _ item that a fashion forward billionaire  _ should  _ be wearing rather than the coarse, tarnished and snot-encrusted livestock device it was before. “...This is beautiful.”

“I was going more for  _ ‘badass,’  _ but I’ll take that,” Jason replied proudly.

Bruce tried it on his wrist and was pleased at the natural fit. “Where did you learn to do this?”

Jason snorted and gestured to Red Hood’s helmet where it perched atop of the rest of his gear. “The school of trial and error— they don’t sell those on Amazon.”

How did Bruce end up with such an amazing kid? “I don’t think I told you before,” he said, tearing his eyes from the cuff to Jason. “Thank you. For this, and for… setting me straight.”

His son’s beaming intensified even as he shrugged an arm around Bruce’s shoulders. They drifted toward the lockers, where he would deposit the nose ring-turned-ornament safely with his after-patrol clothes.

“I’m happy to call you on your bullshit any time you want, old man.”

Several minutes later, when the cowl was on and the father yielded to the commander, Bruce had refocused on the night’s agenda. “Hood.”

Jason was leaning on his bike, smoothing down the edges of his domino. “Yup.”

“I could use an assist tonight,” Bruce said. “If you don’t have plans.”

His mouth quirked as he settled the helmet on his head and secured the latches, swinging a leg over the motorcycle.

The voice modulator couldn’t quite remove his satisfaction.

_ “Rodger dodger, B. Let’s hit it.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of those twists that I was like "yeah, weird cool I like the token based metaphor" and then I started writing it and was like "oh god that's horrific" and then shrugged because assassins are allowed to be horrific pieces of crap and not honor fetishists sometimes.
> 
> Comments are like coffee-- they keep me alive and writing coherent sentences! If you're enjoying this, I love hearing from you!
> 
> Next, the Epilogue where Bruce wonders how he's messed up his OTHER kids


	5. Epilogue: Crop Rotation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce checks in on the rest of his kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to audreycritter’s CEC-verse because I’m pretty sure I’ve absorbed some of her characterization

Bruce was on the phone with his very  _ wearying _ CFO when Dick let himself into his office. He nodded in reply to the small wave and sighed forebearingly when the gentleman on the other end digressed  _ yet again  _ mid-answer, something about an embezzlement scandal at PinTech that he wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole and how he’d always  _ thought _ Rex Manchester was a little sketchy, and how that’s neither here nor there—

“Mr. Sanderson,” he interrupted, I hate to cut this short, but my eleven-thirty is here.  _ When _ did you say that proposal would be ready?”

Sanderson had not, in fact, given him a time at all, nor was shortening the conversation an inconvenience. His reply had derailed at least thrice already. _ “Oh! No, no, you’re a busy man. Just like my grandaddy used to say, you gotta—“ _

Bruce bit his lip to restrain the scream. “Mr. Sanderson _. The proposal.” _

_ “Right! Thursday or better. Barring any—“ _

_ “Thank you.  _ That will be all.” Bruce hung up and dropped the phone on his pile of paperwork, closing his eyes to center himself because Wayne Enterprises was  _ not  _ the proper arena for outletting his frustration on the office furniture.

When he opened them, he saw that Dick was watching with amusement, arms stretched along the back of the couch just like he’d done as a child after school. Many maddening afternoons were rescued by Dick’s boundless enthusiasm, though he’d only come by sparingly the last few years. “No rest for the wicked, huh B?”

Bruce stood and took his coat from the back of his chair. “Not when your personal assistant calls in sick.”

They took the elevator with several nervous looking paper pushers who avoided eye contact with both Bruce and Dick, whose GPD uniform must have put them off— maybe they thought there was some kind of dire business scandal their CEO was attending to. That was one way to get the rumor mill going.

One of them flinched when Bruce reached past to press the ground floor button.

“At ease,” he said lightly, double-checking that his resting glower was put away in favor of a genial smile. “I don’t  _ really  _ eat interns for breakfast.”

The two youngsters laughed nervously, posture appeasing. They were hardly more than kids, maybe Tim’s age at most. What  _ were _ his staffers telling them? 

Dick piped up.  _ “Anymore,”  _ he said, chipper. 

Alarm flashed across their uncertain smiles.

Bruce made an exaggerated eye roll and jerked his thumb at Dick. “My son _ , _ the comedian.”

“Ah,” they said, and  _ “ha-ha”  _ as they fled gratefully onto their floor.

The doors closed. Dick nudged him with his elbow. “You think they’d be  _ more  _ or  _ less  _ terrified if they knew their boss was Batman?”

_ “Names,” _ he scolded, but he smiled.

Dick’s grin widened as the doors opened to the lobby. “Wow,  _ you’re  _ in a good mood. Now I’m almost afraid to ask why you wanted to get lunch.”

The sandwich shop was a block from the building, so they took the revolving door outside and hung a right.

Getting lunch was the first opportunity he’d been able to contrive to see Dick Grayson alone, without the distraction of others or a mask. There was an uncomfortable lack of recent examples of interaction off the clock, and he’d woken up that morning with a fretful need to see how Dick was doing. Was there anything that had slipped past him while he was in winter?

Bruce caught himself fiddling with Jason’s cuff and put his hands back down by his sides. “I wanted to see you.”

And seeing him  _ did  _ ease the irrational anxiety— Dick’s life didn’t seem to be falling apart in any overly obvious way. 

“Bruce,” Dick sighed laughingly, “you underestimate my deductive reasoning skills. You’ll  _ see  _ me tonight at dinner. You’re seeing me  _ alone  _ for lunch.”

It was a pattern deviation, true. He opted to deflect instead of admit his paranoia. “Interesting. It’s almost as if you were raised by a detective.”

“Weird, right? Alfred and I  _ did  _ play a lot of Clue back in the day.”

Bruce huffed a laugh, and Dick let it go, chatting about the latest Hatter weirdos and the additional weirdness on his “night shift” while they sat down and ordered.

Hatter always stirred up a sick feeling in Bruce. He’d fallen quiet when the subject changed to his agricultural sojourn.

“So?... it went well?” Dick pried. “Tell me all about it. Did you get to drive one of those vegetable mower things?”

“The combine. Yes.” 

Conversation with Dick always hurtled forward regardless of how short his answers were. There was always another question, something to keep it going. “Yeah? How much did you  _ combine?”  _

And Bruce found quantitative answers came easiest. “Mm. About forty-eight thousand bushels.”

“... What’s a bushel?”

“Sixty-four pints.”

Dick rolled his eyes with a groan. “Yeah, because I have a reference point for sixty-four  _ pints.  _ What’s that in normal people measurements?”

Bruce hummed. “A bushel of corn is about fifty-six pounds.”

Dick tapped his phone. “Fifty-six pounds, okay, so forty-eight thousand bushels would be—”

“One thousand forty-four tons.” Bruce sipped his water.

Dick shot him a snide look, unappreciative of the mental math. “I was  _ going  _ to say, two-point-seven million  _ pounds.” _

“I believe I said that.”

A text prompted him to pull his phone out.

_ Jason: I told u you’d thank me later. _

There were a number of attachments.

Dick peered over, intrigued by whatever had captured Bruce’s attention. “Who’s that?”

He swiped it open. “Jay sent me his pictures. From the farm.”

Dick lit up and crammed into Bruce’s side of the booth. “This I gotta see.”

There was the one Jason took the first morning when Bruce was working on the harvester— Dick guffawed when he saw the cap. The next one was a picture of a vandalized warning sticker, peeled off and restuck vertically so the stick figure twisted around the auger was dancing around a pole with lights and music in black marker; Jason in the cab of the tractor, posing coolly with the radio handset and a long piece of straw in his mouth; Bruce walking towards the house with his head down, oblivious to the parade of hens following after him; a surreptitious selfie with Jason making a  _ chef’s kiss  _ gesture with his fingers while Bruce, hair spiked and clothes rumpled from bed, was absorbed in an omelette; a trail of corn on the ground and Bruce just visible inside the tractor, mid-expletive; a blurred night shot of Bruce wincing in the light of the camera flash, a multitool in his hand; Beauford— sans nose ring— and Jason, standing next to the newly repaired fence in a remarkable imitation of  _ American Gothic,  _ complete with pitchfork; and— Bruce felt his cheeks heat— one of him smiling softly over Martha’s shoulder as they embraced. He lingered on that one for an extra moment before swiping to the last photo.

Jason couldn’t have taken this one— Clark had said something about sending a few photos from his phone earlier, when he’d called to thank Bruce again for coming and to subtly confirm that Bruce was doing okay and  _ not _ having some kind of post-breakthrough depressive spiral.

They were sitting next to each other, Jason smirking impishly as he said something conspiratorial into Bruce’s bent ear, both of them looking off camera at whatever merited a joke— if he remembered correctly, Jason’s comment was  _ I’m just glad  _ **_you_ ** _ don’t take ketchup on your eggs. _

Something was different about Bruce in this one— and it wasn’t the wry expression or being an accessory to mischief. It was his eyes.

He looked… happy.

_ Both  _ of them looked happy.

Bruce stared at it until Dick pulled the phone out of his hands. “Oh my God. You’re sending me  _ all _ of these,” he said, tapping the screen. “ Aaaand,  _ sent.”  _

Dick handed it back as his own pocket  _ dinged  _ and he returned to his side of the table. “I can’t believeI’m saying it, but it looks like you two actually had a good time out there.”

Bruce twisted the bull ring around his wrist, still reeling. All those pictures… He was going to frame them. And put them in the hallway.

And he had a burning need to somehow get pictures like that for the  _ rest _ of his kids.

Dick raised an eyebrow significantly, watching him fidget with the cuff. “... You’re accessorizing now?”

Bruce made a noncommittal sound and made himself stop. He sat back and changed the subject. “You’re coming to dinner tonight?”

“You know the way to my heart is through my stomach. Of course I am.”

As if on cue, lunch arrived and Bruce took to active listening rather than active answering as Dick again controlled the conversation.

On their way out, Dick bumped him with his shoulder. “We should do this more,” he said brightly.

Bruce agreed with a  _ hn,  _ and they paused outside the restaurant. Dick would be going back to the GCPD, and Bruce to his Wayne Tower office, but neither said goodbye. They lingered awkwardly on the sidewalk instead.

He could feel the  _ not knowing _ coming on, the clumsy grab for the right words that always slipped through his fingers.

Dick knew the drill— he’d known Bruce for a long time. He took a breath to let Bruce off the hook, to say  _ well, see ya tonight then,  _ but the bittersweet turn of his mouth and the inward pinch of his shoulders were suddenly  _ legible _ to Bruce, like a lightbulb snapping on— the foreign language turned native tongue:

_ I miss you. _

It was the invisible piece that had tugged at him since he’d woken that morning, the responsibility going unnoticed right in front of him.

On impulse, Bruce pulled him into an embrace. Dick didn’t miss a beat, melting against him and holding tight, a man of practiced affection.

Dick  _ was  _ a hugger.

This was his first son, his brother and partner in crime fighting, the one that showed him so much joy and love that he’d forgotten and could  _ feel _ again, foaming waves crashing against his bow that may sail or sink him. God, he just wanted to know that he’d done alright, that he hadn’t sabotaged Dick’s life for always being the better man. 

How to  _ say  _ that was still a mystery.

“If I wasn’t here,” he said quietly, “would you stay in Gotham?”

Dick tensed. “...What do you mean?”

“Did you come back to Gotham because I needed you, or because you wanted to?”

Dick pulled back, eyes flicking over Bruce’s entire body. “Uh…” He laughed, but it was strained. “Is everything okay with you? I feel like you’re about to tell me you have a brain tumor or something.” When there wasn’t an immediate denial, his anxious smile dissipated. “You  _ don’t...  _ right?”

Bruce shook his head. “No. I’m fine.”

Dick eyed him skeptically. “Honestly, B… You’ve been kinda worrying me lately. What’s going on?”

The feelings knotting around his brain defied description. “I… don’t want you to feel like you’re under _ obligation _ to me, Dick. I…” He frowned, struggling to make the thoughts cohere. “I love you, and... I want you to do what makes  _ you _ happy, not what you think will make  _ me _ happy.”

Dick raised his brows.

Bruce tried again to elaborate. “I’ve been thinking, and… I want to make sure you— none of you— feel used, or… or exploited. By me raising you.”

Dick relaxed and sighed in post-stress pique, apparently mollified by his understanding of the situation.

He wished he could implant the nebulous thoughts into Dick’s head instead of being forced to find the words. “I  _ want _ you around, I just…” 

“B,” Dick interrupted, fond but almost chiding, “you’ve got it backwards. I’m not here because you need me. I’m here because _I_ need _you.”_

And yet, they barely saw one another. Bruce’s guilt intensified.

“If you need me… just ask. Please. I’m… I can be…” Orphanhood was the only real commonality they’d started with— some of Bruce’s night had bled into Dick’s day and vice versa, but of any of them, Dick was the hardest for Bruce to intuit the inner workings of.

“Oblivious,” Dick finished.

Bruce sighed. “Yes.”

Dick smiled at his feet, rubbing his neck, and Bruce frowned.

_ “Is  _ there something?...”

“Heh. Uh, actually?...”

Dick went in for another hug and sighed against Bruce’s neck. “I haven’t had one of these in like,  _ weeks,”  _ he said. “I’m starting to feel sort of  _ incorporeal, _ you know?”

——

After lunch with Dick, Bruce was spared the rigors of office life by a text message from Cassandra. The night before, after much deliberation, he had invited her to dinner and supplied the reason why rather than keep it a secret like he had with the others. It was a long flight, and she barely knew Jason, and the bond she shared with Bruce was violent and visceral and confusing, but… she was the closest thing to a daughter he had. Family should be there.

And he was damned sure that even with his many missteps, he was closer to being her father than David Cain.

Maybe someday, they’d make it official.

There had been no reply, and he’d swallowed the disappointment. It had been a long shot. She was involved in her own dramas on the other side of the world, and he tried to think nothing more of it.

At least, until his phone buzzed on the walk back to WE.

The text was from Cassandra. As usual, it consisted exclusively of images:

_ Airplane, car, house? _

Bruce stopped on the sidewalk to study it. He swiped to the Gotham Airport’s schedule and scanned the arrivals.

_ Hong Kong —> Gotham 12:23 _

He checked the time. That was only ten minutes ago.

He squinted through a selection of emojis. Somehow there were more and more every time he checked— eventually he settled on  _ man running, car, airplane,  _ and after a moment’s hesitation,  _ heart.  _

Fortunately she gave him a gate number without pictograms, so finding her at the airport was a quicker affair than navigating traffic  _ to  _ the airport— this was why he had a  _ driver.  _ So he could save his rage for Batman.

But when he spotted her, all the annoyance fell away. It had been over a year since they had met mask to mask, and longer since he’d caught a glimpse of her liquid brown eyes sparkling back at him. She brightened and bounced, ballerina-like, up to him, almost as if to throw her arms around his neck— or, more likely, tackle him to the ground in a very born-assassin manner of affection— but she stopped just short, head tilting curiously.

He smiled down at her. “Hello.”

Cassandra squinted, studying him. “You are different,” she observed. “Feeling better.”

English was not her first language, but she wasn’t ignorant— she was as precise with her words as she was with any blade. She just wasn’t one to waste them— when she bothered to use them at all. “Yes.”

Her eyebrows pinched together in confused worry. Without looking away from his face, she snatched up his left arm into her tiny, deadly hands to begin turning it over, spreading open his palm and rotating the elbow joint, possibly suspicious of injury. He let her push up his sleeve to find the cuff gleaming on his wrist.

She touched it and gave him a quizzical look. “Guarding. Why?”

“It was a gift.”

“No,” she corrected sagely after a moment’s consideration. “Afraid to lose.”

That was implied, he thought, but then again Bruce Wayne was the recipient of many,  _ many  _ ‘gifts’ he wouldn’t mind ‘losing.’

He conceded with a tilt of his head. “... Jason made it for me.”

Her knowing eyes softened. “Family.”

Careful to telegraph his intent (even though she was more fluent in body language than most people were with the spoken word), he put an arm around her shoulders and tucked her to his side as they crossed the parking lot.

She wasn’t tense, but she wasn’t relaxed, either— she was fluid, anticipating his movements so that she neither resisted nor succumbed to his steady tide. Memories with her were sensory— and most of them were through the cowl’s lenses. Fighting alongside her was a dance in which she stole the show; she flitted through his gaps, viper quick through his seams, not less for her size but  _ more, _ a distillate poet, silent ink on invisible paper.

It took feeling her  _ here _ to fully realize the ache of her absence.

Bruce swallowed. “Yes. Family.”

She put a hand over his where it held her shoulder. “Guarding again,” she said, amused.

He nodded. “... Afraid to lose.”

She hummed and pressed closer. “If you can’t  _ catch, _ you never lose.”

——

Alfred was pleased to see Cassandra, and less pleased to observe that she’d brought literally nothing with her (an exclamation that she merely shrugged at). Since her intention was apparently to stay at the Manor rather than her old apartment or the Clocktower, he beckoned for her to come along for something to snack on while he set up a guest room and rummaged for a few changes of clothes.

Jason, who was spending the day puttering around the Manor library, hung back with Bruce. “You know, I thought Ninja Girl would be less scary without the bat ears and creepy ass mouthless mask.” He shook his head. “But nope…. Does she always look at you like you might need evisceration?”

They drifted back to the library. “Yes.” Bruce said. “Don’t worry. It grows on you.”

Jason was settling into slow pacing along the windows. “Well,  _ that’s  _ good to know.”

Bruce approached the glass and stood looking out, pretending to ignore the pacing. He tried to picture the grounds covered in corn.

Growing on the property may not be  _ such  _ a bad idea.

At length, he opted to ask. “Nervous?”

Jason didn’t stop moving. “Nah,” he said dryly, “this went over  _ great  _ last time, remember?” 

He did. Dick had been…  _ unimpressed  _ by the addition of a new sibling. Of course, at the time he’d been a teenager who was unimpressed with  _ everything  _ Bruce did. Jason’s death hit him hard, however, and when Tim came along, he seemed determined to be a model older brother. At ten years later, he was considerably mellowed in general.

But Bruce wouldn’t pretend to know Dick’s mind perfectly, and he honestly wasn’t sure of Tim’s reaction. At least Cassandra’s opinion was neutral at worst— she’d made the trip, after all. Alfred looked upon their improved relationship with glowing approval; it was safe to assume he’d be positive about the adoption.

Bruce took a deep breath. “Come here?”

Jason looked up, suspicious, but he came closer and let Bruce rest his hand on the back of his neck. He snorted. “At least they’ll all know at once— I can sort it out in  _ one  _ melee instead of three.”

Bruce squeezed gently. “Anything I can do?”

He sighed, absently cracking his knuckles. “No. But… there is something  _ else _ that’s been on my mind, if you—”

He cut himself short at the sound of quick footsteps stopping in the doorway.

“Hey Bruce, Alf— oh,” Tim said, glancing between them and looking flustered.

Jason cleared his throat and stepped out from under Bruce’s hand. “What’s up, Replacement?”

Tim shifted uncomfortably. “Sorry, um. Alfred said to tell you everything’s ready.”

“Thank you, Tim. We’ll be right there,” Bruce said. After Tim nodded and left the doorway, he gave Jason a stern look.

Jason raised his hands appeasingly and shrugged.  _ “I don’t mean nothin’ by it,  _ just giving him a hard time. Force of habit.”

Bruce gave him a sidelong look as he moved toward the door. “Remember that if you instigate a fistfight in the dining room, Alfred will skin _both_ of us.”

——

Jason’s announcement went over with a seventy-five percent success rate.

Dick was beside himself with joy, and Alfred was likewise enthused (though in a much more subdued display). Cassandra cheerfully teased about ‘little brothers.’

Tim grinned with frozen eyes and recited stilted congratulations without breathing.

Jason pretended to be nonchalant as he shook off his Dick’s clinging and Alfred’s special treats, but he was obviously relieved. He even accepted a kiss on the cheek from Cassandra without reacting in self-defense.

Not that Tim was openly opposed. If Bruce were not making a point of watching closely, he probably wouldn’t have noticed anything amiss— even the others were too distracted by the news to pay Tim much attention, even when he excused himself before Alfred’s cake, citing unfinished work.

Bruce didn’t follow immediately. He forced himself through a slice before sending Dick and Jason downstairs for pre-patrol without him— he’d be along shortly. He knew Tim wasn’t down there. An alert— disguised as a birdwatching notification— was sent to his phone whenever someone was admitted to the Cave, and he hadn’t received one.

Tim’s room was cluttered as usual but unoccupied. The drapes were parted, however, and in the distance the Drake estate sat empty.

With an upstairs light on.

Bruce drove over and didn’t bother knocking. He passed the barren kitchen and the covered furniture and the shut up bedrooms.

Tim’s  _ old _ room was as chilled and abandoned as the rest of the house, but that’s where Bruce spotted him, sitting on the edge of the dusty bed with his elbows on his knees and a distant stare.

He straightened a little when Bruce stepped through the doorway, apparently so lost in thought he hadn’t heard him coming down the hall. 

Ignoring the sheepish look, Bruce perched on the windowsill— from here the Manor was visible, lights of its own pricking the night.

Bruce felt the cuff around his wrist and tried to remember the last time he’d actually spoken to Tim alone. He recalled fragments of orders and muttered responses to clever quips, but other than an appeal to come to the Kent farm he drew a blank.

Tim was wary in a different way than Jason. He locked himself in an orbit around Bruce, inexorably trapped in his gravity but carefully distant, as if closing in may burn him up like a shooting star.

Bruce glanced at Tim but returned to the window, sensing that the pressure of eye contact might send him fleeing. “Everything alright?”

Tim hesitated. “I guess I was just… feeling nostalgic?” he said slowly, but he didn’t sound fond. He sounded… resigned.

Bruce had been here only a few times: one or two parties; once to find Tim dying of an overdose; two or three times after that to retrieve things as he gradually moved Tim into the Manor; a final time to utterly ream out Jack and Janet for abandoning Tim— none particularly good memories. “Hn... What about?”

He felt more than saw Tim shrug. “Nothing much. Just…” He seemed undecided about whether to go on— when he did, it came out in a rush. “When I used to follow Batman and Robin around, taking photos, I came back here and went to bed, and I could watch the lights go out at the Manor. I liked knowing you and Jason were going to bed just like me, like regular people. I used to wonder if you…” Tim trailed off suddenly.

Bruce waited. “Yes?” he prompted.

Tim turned a little pink in his periphery. “Back then, I wasn’t sure if adopting Jason was just, like, a formality? So you could have a Robin live with you without raising suspicion. Or if he was  _ really  _ your son, and you… if you…” The words seemed to stick in his throat. “I don’t know. If you did…  _ dad _ things? I know, it’s stupid, but I wondered if you said  _ goodnight _ , or tucked him in, or whatever.”

The answer was complicated. It was  _ yes,  _ but with many conditions. It was  _ no,  _ with many allowances. But somehow, that didn’t seem to be what Tim was wondering _. _

While Bruce considered, Tim continued. “Then everything, you know,  _ happened.  _ Then I was Robin, and I thought I’d stop wondering, but I didn’t, and then I was a  _ Wayne, _ and I thought I’d stop wondering, but... I haven’t.” He forced his voice to lighten with false humor. “They say every kid’s different though, right? You never would have been the same way with me anyway. So it doesn’t matter.”

Bruce scrubbed a hand down his face, stifling an impossible desire to go back in time and punch himself in the face.

Tim cleared his throat uneasily. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to remind you about—”

Bruce pinned him with a look. “Tim,” he said firmly.

Tim shrank.

He mulled it over, all too aware of how many  _ wrong  _ things there were to say. He sighed and twisted the body-warm metal on his arm. “I’m glad you brought it up— there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Alarm spread on Tim’s face, the old insecurity, and Bruce hurried to correct course.

“In the past, I know you’ve thought that… you were here in Jason’s place. As Robin, and as my son.” He knitted his fingers so they would stop fidgeting. “Jason is back, but you are  _ still _ both of those things. As long as that’s what you want.”

Tim was obviously caught off guard. “... Um. It's great about Jason, I know that’s… that’s been a lot of stress for you, but he’s Red Hood now, and he probably still doesn’t want Robin back,” he said.

“One doesn’t hinge on the other. Robin or not, you’ll always have a home with me.”

The wariness hadn’t faded, the searching between the lines for what Bruce was really trying to say. “Do you… still  _ want me  _ to be Robin?”

Bruce ran a hand through his hair. “As long as you’re  _ happy _ doing it, Tim. Not doing it because you think I  _ need _ you to, or even because I  _ want  _ you to.”

Tim averted his eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”

He tried to choose his words carefully. “I’m aware my influence can be…” He grimaced.  _ “... pervasive. _ But your life is your own. If you want Robin, if you want to be something else, if you’d rather  _ quit _ … it’s fine, as long as it’s what  _ you  _ want. You’ll still have my backing. And…” he breathed deep, because the truer it was the harder it was to admit. “I do a poor job of showing it, but... I will still love you. No matter what. Okay?”

Tim stared at him for several seconds. “Bruce,” he said, his blushed alarm deepening, “Are you dying?”

Bruce frowned, exasperated. Why does he keep getting asked that?  _ “No,  _ Tim. I’m not dying.”

“Are you _ sure?” _

“As much as usual,” he said. “Recently it’s been brought to my attention that my… attention… has been lacking,” he admitted. “You deserved better then, Tim. You needed more than I gave. I won’t ask you to forgive me for that... but I want to make it up to you now. If you’ll allow me.”

Tim nodded guardedly and avoided his gaze.

Bruce frowned, another idea occurring to him. “This  _ isn’t _ about you not going to the farm. I would have _ liked _ having you there, but—”

A guilty look crossed Tim’s face. “I really  _ was  _ busy…”

Bruce raised an eyebrow, smiling a little.  _ “The Confetti King?” _

Tim winced. “Yeah, well— okay, look,” he said quickly, “please don’t tell Alfred or Clark or Dick I told you this.” He lowered his voice. “We kinda… conspired? To get you to ask Jason?”

At Bruce’s blank look, he plunged on.

“You guys were both miserable after the whole letting-Jason-break-your-arm thing, and, um. The storm had to break  _ sooner or later,  _ and... There’s low property damage potential at the farm? Compared to Gotham, that is.” Tim hunched his shoulders. “You didn’t destroy Smallville or kill each other, so it seems like it was a… uh… success…” He braced tighter, giving Bruce a sideways look. “... Are you mad?” 

Bruce paused thoughtfully before he got up and extended a hand to Tim, waiting until he cautiously took it. 

The boy yelped in surprise as Bruce pulled him into a hug.

“No,” Bruce murmured. “I’m not mad.  _ Thank you.” _

_ Thank you for doing what I was too  _ **_thick_ ** _ to do myself. _

Tim took several breaths before burrowing against him, fingers clenching in his shirt like droughted roots greedily sucking up water.

Bruce stroked Tim’s youth-soft hair until his head turned against his chest, against the heartbeat hiding behind muscle and hard bone.  _ I promise, I promise, I promise. _

A long time passed before Tim shyly withdrew, happy and slack with vented tension.

Bruce didn’t let him go yet, straightening the hair he’d mussed and making sure Tim was listening. “Anything you need, or  _ want…  _ please ask. According to Dick, I’m oblivious to hints.”

Tim’s expression was both gratified and pitying. “You kind of are.” It shifted to  _ pensive _ as he looked away.

Bruce raised his eyebrows.  _ “. _ .. Am I missing one right  _ now?” _

Tim pursed his lips, face carefully shuttered. “... Why don’t you want me on the hallucinogen case?”

Bruce blinked. “I… what?”

“You’re working off of my report. But... with Jason.” Hurt peeked through cracks in his facade.

Tim’s report— the one Bruce had prioritized upon his return. And promptly invited  _ Jason _ on. He winced, knowing this was something he’d made a habit of. “As far as I’m concerned, Tim, it’s  _ your  _ case. I was  _ interloping,  _ not kicking you out.”

“Oh.” Tim, apparently finding that believable, relaxed, flashing him a grandiose look. “In that case, would you like to  _ assist?” _

An old, familiar swell of pride at a Robin coming into his own, building confidence, warmed him. Bruce quirked a smile and was rewarded with a grin in return.

“Lead the way.”

——

_ “B.” _

This roof was out of the way of Crime Alley, where Red Hood had gone to patrol tonight. Something in his unhurried approach signaled that he’d come to talk to  _ Bruce,  _ not Batman, and it wasn’t something he wanted going over the coms.

Batman looked him over. He didn’t appear to be injured, but he knew better than to make assumptions about that. “Hood. Status?”

_ “Dandy.”  _ The helmet came off, and he was grateful for the ability to measure tone of voice and facial expression instead of guessing at the artificially modulated words. “It’s about your  _ offer.” _

He tensed, but looked over the street. He remembered Jason’s aborted admission in the library and wondered if it was related. “It stands.”

Hood came alongside him and sniffed with casual indifference. “I know I said I wasn’t ready like some kind of wuss, but I’m not sure this can wait.”

There was something odd in his tone. Batman turned, his undivided attention on Red Hood.

Hood sucked his teeth, looking over the edge of the roof instead of at Batman. “There was this _ kid,” _ he said slowly. “A  _ little kid.  _ He was getting the five star treatment compared to me, but… hell, that’s still a raw deal in the League. He was Talia’s  _ other  _ project. Some kinda assassin  _ prodigy.” _

That was… odd. Even for an Al Ghul. Children were tolerated insofar as their value as an heir, and they were very  _ particular  _ about bloodlines. Unless they’d gotten truly desperate for a successor in the last couple years, the child had to be Talia’s own, and the father had to be someone of consequence to be honored with a place in their lineage. Someone—

Bruce’s blood ran cold and his lips were numb as he asked, “How old?”

“Seven or eight at the time. Ten-ish now? Don’t quote me on it.”

_ Oh, God. _ His voice felt like someone else’s. “What did he look like.”

A snort filtered through the ringing in his ears. “He had black hair, like  _ ninety percent of the population _ in Nanda Parbat, B.”

He swallowed wetly, locking the thought away, struggling back up to the surface. Jason needed him  _ here,  _ not disappearing into the mire of his thoughts.

The father could wait. The commander had things to do. “You want to extract him.”

Hood grinned, resting his foot on the roof’s edge and leaning his arms on his knee.

“I was going to say...  _ kidnap.” _

_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never expected to write 30,000 words on this, but I'm glad I did! I hope it was as cathartic for you as it was for me.  
> Feel free to download the graciously and anonymously supplied artwork :)  
> If you enjoyed the story or the pretty picture, I am addicted to hearing your thoughts on what worked (or what didn't work! just be nice and constructive). I've got a few ideas about what to write next, but I'm open to suggestions on that as well!  
> THANK YOU for reading!


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